Isaiah::27

I have had two dogs for over 13 years. 

Frank and Beanie are geriatric wiener dogs. My wife and I have seen them move through various phases over the last decade. They've been energetic puppies, the king and queen of our house and grey-muzzled-all-day-sleepers. The one thing our dogs have always been is entirely in the moment and seemingly not consumed with self-doubt. 

I'm obviously projecting on my dogs quite a bit, but let me present a situation I've never seen before that brings me to this conclusion. 

I've never walked into the living room in the morning to find Frank with his stubby little legs kicked up on our ottoman looking pensively out our window thinking;
"Who am I to bark at the neighbor dog?"
"When I develop an authoritative enough bark, I plan on using it."
"I wonder if my owners would love me more if I ate less of my own feces?"

There's such a freedom in watching a creature be so uninhibited. While my dogs have many faults, I appreciate that it's all right on the surface. My dogs are many things, but they're never false. 

This past week we talked about sitting with our inadequacies and not being afraid of them. This isn't so that we become more comfortable with wallowing in shame, but so that we can become free of it. The kind of freedom that I experience my dog having. 

This week we're going to continue that theme through the book of Isaiah in seeing how God was calling the Israelite nation to see themselves differently and experience a freedom they were created for. It's a lesson that we can learn from our pets. It's a lesson God is inviting us into so that we can live into who we were created to be.