“God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.”

Acts 17:27

I had to go into the church office and run a few errands today and I observed something. I saw numerous people walking or running with their dogs. I decided to make a point to start counting them. Within a 5 mile radius I counted 16 dogs and 14 people together! Two different people were walking two dogs each. People in Hood River love their dogs!

I know that our dog, Lola, is going to have a very difficult time when life gets back to a somewhat normal schedule; when we don’t work from home any more.

At any given moment between the hours of 9:00 am and 6:00 pm you can find Lola lying at either mine or Jeff’s feet under our dining room table (our temporary workspace). She loves us being home all day! There is no place a dog would rather be than with their people!

What an adjustment it will be for all of our furry family members when we go back to our work places! They will once again find themselves home alone for a good part of the day.

When I was growing up we had an adorable little dog named Roger. Roger would get very upset when we kids would leave for school and my parents went to work. Left alone in the house, he would plan out how to let us know that he was not happy at all! My sisters and I would often come home from school and find our dolls lying at the front door with their fingers and toes chewed off of them! Roger would go into our room and find our dolls and chew them up and then lay them at the front door so that it was the first thing we saw when we got home! If you ever get the chance and

you haven’t seen “The Secret Life of Pets”, you need to watch it. It is pretty funny! And Roger would have fit right in with all of them! Dogs are very relational, and they desire and need their people to interact and spend time with them.

This whole dog thing got me thinking about something else. When this pandemic is over, and people are not in fear or worry about what lies ahead, and we Christians aren’t lifting up prayers daily and praying for God to eradicate COVID-19, then what?

Our God in heaven is a relational God. He desires to interact and spend time with us, His children. Acts 17:27 tells us that “God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.”

The idea that God wants to spend time with us is a truth that so many of us don’t want to recognize about Him. Relationships take time and sacrifice. I don’t know about you, but I often want God to give me His time when I think I need it, but don’t even think that maybe He wants to spend time with me too. Why is that? He created you and me. He not only has a perfect plan for our lives, but He wants us to invite Him to engage in that plan. He wants to spend time with us! Because He loves us and is crazy about us.

So when everything goes back to a somewhat normal routine for all of us and we get back to our daily busy lives, let’s make sure that we don’t leave our Lord behind at home waiting for us at the front door.

Don’t worry, He won’t “chew us out” like Roger chewed up my dolls. But it will break His heart, and He will miss us!

Joke for a laugh:

What's the difference between a dog and a basketball player?

Answer: One drools, the other dribbles.

In His grace, Lynda