Me and Allison recently got a new member of our family, her name is Riley! The reason we knew Riley was the dog for us is because when we went searching at the local animal shelter we saw her there kinda doing her own thing.
Riley wasn’t barking or jumping up in the air like a fool like all the other dogs were doing. When I played with Riley at the shelter that day she jumped up in my lap and layed her head down on me and looked in my eyes. She’s so sweet! She can be playful and energetic but also restful and gentle, my kind of dog because that’s me also! Here’s me and Riley recently:
Although she is sweet, I learned something else about Riley the other day. Riley loves foam. Specifically the foam inside the couch. That’s right, while I was away at a conference called the global leadership summit getting invested in and excited about my leadership, Riley was at home going to town on our couch. When I saw what she had done, I didn’t know she was capable of such a thing. I thought “maybe another dog broke in the house and did all of this just to frame sweet little Riley!?”
Here’s a picture of some of what she had done:
Any normal person would be upset about this mess right!? I mean look at what she did! That’s the couch that I got the military discount on and I’m not even in the military!
Although I was kinda upset about her actions, something else at the moment stood out to me.
As I stood there and saw the couch all torn apart, I saw her all alone. She was different than she normally is. She wasn’t her happy self. She looked like someone had eaten all her bacon treats right in front of her face. I sat down right by her and asked “Riley, are you ok?”
Riley wouldn’t even look at me. Literally, she wouldn’t. She looked at the couch torn apart but she wouldn’t look at me. She sat by me with her tail tucked between her legs and her head faced downward and it hit me, she saw how upset I was about her action so she thought that somehow changed my love for her. I could tell this is what she thought.
The fact she wouldn’t look at me broke my heart more than the mess made me upset.
I picked up her little head and looked her in the eyes and said “Riley, you did a bad thing, but I still love you so much.” She then gave me a gentle lick 🙂
Upon reflection, I thought… this is exactly what we do with Jesus who loves us. When we mess up, which we all do, we think that somehow Jesus is upset with us and doesn’t want to see us.
It’s the complete opposite. Jesus doesn’t stand at the feet of our mess ready to accuse us and shame us. Jesus loves us and He wants to be with us. He has grace for us even when we know we don’t deserve it.
That’s what the gospel is all about, not that we loved God but that He loves us.
In this love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son for our sins (1 John 4:10a AMP)
That’s what’s so amazing about grace. It doesn’t depend on our actions. It isn’t performance-based. It’s based on the simple truth that we are God’s loved kids and that He loved us first long before we loved Him and nothing can stand in the way of His love.
Jesus loves us and he’s waiting for us to look at him. To turn toward him, accepting his grace.
Bryant Westbrook 