Go and Enjoy Your Dog — Go and Enjoy Your God

Playing with Letters

Do you ever play with letters? You can rearrange them and make all sorts of words. Take three simple letters: D, O, G. Shuffle them one way and you get DOG. Shuffle them another way and you get GOD. Sometimes people have difficulty telling the difference — but the connection between those two little words might be more meaningful than we think.

What a Dog Taught Me About Love

When I was a boy, we had a dog. In fact, we had him from when I was five until I was twenty — and a bit more, actually. His name was Patch, because he had a big brown patch on one side. And one of the things I loved about Patch was that he was so loving. I would sometimes be mean, but Patch was always caring, always loving. He never gave up on me.

Dogs are often like that. They belong in packs. They like to be with people. They like to be close to people. There's something deeply faithful about the way a dog sticks with you.

From Dog to God

When I began to learn about God and about love, do you know what I thought? D-O-G… G-O-D — well, it's not the same, but I learned about what kindness and love mean by looking at my dog. And I learned about what God's goodness and kindness mean, in part, by watching Patch.

Because that's what kindness is. Kindness is sticking with you. Caring for you. Loving you — even when you mess up, even when you do wrong. God's forgiveness is always there for you. God is always with you.

Go and Enjoy

So next time you think about your dog, you can think about God as well. And next time you think about God, you can think about your dog — because it's kind of the same. That's the wonderful thing about having pets. That's the wonderful thing about knowing God and knowing that God loves us and calls us to be sharers of God's love with other people.

Go and enjoy your dog. Go and enjoy your God.