My dog, Banshee, loves the beach. She knows we are headed to the beach when we load up in the car and
she gets in the back seat. And she is excited. She loves to run on the pier, bark at the
pelicans, dig in the sand, and swim in the bay.
Its her favorite place on earth.
Banshee will return to me with a particular whistle. So,
when we are at the beach and no fences separate our house from the neighbors, I
feel rather comfortable allowing her to run free, knowing she will return when
I whistle—at least, most of the time.
At times, Banshee finds some exciting treasure (at least in
dog terms) and is tempted to not return when I whistle. Her favorite treasure at the beach is dead
fish. Being a hound dog, she has quite a
nose for sniffing out dead fish. I’ve
gotten pretty good at recognizing when she’s on the dead-fish-prowl and will
immediately whistle for her to come back.
Often, she’ll stop dead in her tracks as soon as I whistle and cast a
look over her shoulder at me that says, “What?
I’m not up to anything.”
Sometimes, she’ll come running back to me and I lavish her with praise,
“What a good dog!” But other times,
after looking back, she’ll put that nose down and start sniffing again,
tracking the smell of the dead fish. I
whistle a second time and, she may put her head up and give me a scornful look
communicating that I’ve no idea what I’m interrupting; other times she’ll just
keep going—the temptation is too great.
Dead fish are, after all, the greatest treasure that can be found at the
beach.
When that temptation proves too great, Banshee will race to
the dead fish and proceed to roll in it so that she reeks of a gaggingly,
disgusting smell that can be compared to nothing else on this earth. I’ll continue to call her, and sometimes even
have to go and get her, but whether she comes after being called or I go to get
her, I always pet her and lavish her with praise. You see, if I were to punish her or fuss at
her, I know the next time I called and she had to decide between the dead fish
and me, she’d just go for the dead fish.
But by always praising her for coming back to me, even if she has rolled
in the stench beyond a thousand stenches, I know I’ve at least got a chance
that she’ll choose me the next time.
People often ask me if God is a punishing God. The answer is no. God does not punish, God calls to us to come
to him over and over again. God knows
how tempted we are by the dead fish in our world, by the sin and corruption he
would not have us choose. But instead of
fussing at us or spanking our nose with a rolled up newspaper, God welcomes us
and lavishes us with praise when we choose him.
That’s not to say that choosing a dead fish and refusing to
respond to God’s call is not without consequences. Banshee still has to get a bath whenever she
rolls in dead fish because she smells terrible.
And as much as Banshee loves to swim in the bay, she feels the exact
opposite about taking a bath—she associates water from the faucet and being
lathered up with soap akin to having acid poured on you and then your skin
flayed. Its not my desire to punish her, but her free will that leads to the momentary despair of bath time. And that’s the truth we must accept about God
when it comes to our free will; God chooses us and God does not choose to
punish us even when we choose the dead fish and, consequently, the cleansing bath. That's a truth Banshee hasn't learned yet, and neither have we.
