The Hand of God

I have a dog. His name is Rory. I got him from a rescue four years ago this week, and he has taught me so much about God’s character in the time that I’ve had him. Things about obedience, what it means to be adopted into the family of God, and being loved just because. More on those in a different post…

Rory is a Japanese Chin, which is one of the breeds with the smushed-in face. Because of this, I have to clean out his nose fold (which he hates), and the section around his nose and eyes can get irritated quite easily. When it gets irritated, he scratches it. It’s logical from a dog’s perspective, but obviously I know that scratching it makes it worse, and makes it take much longer to heal. So when he starts scratching at his face I will yell at him to stop, or push his paw away from his face.

One day, I was sitting with him on the floor when he started to go for a face-scratch. Instinctively I reached out and put my hand in between his paw and his face. In that moment, I created a barrier to prevent him from injuring himself, and I took the injury on myself – on my hand. I knew that’s what would happen, and I was fully willing to take that on for the sake of protecting him from that self-inflicted wound. It’s not a perfect metaphor, but in that moment I also had a realization that that action was similar to God sending Christ to the cross for us. Rory is like humankind reaching to inflict a wound upon itself – that wound being death, and Christ is the hand, sent by God, to take that wound on behalf of humankind.

There is no resentment or judgement in that action – simply the desire to protect the beloved, and the willingness to sustain the injury promised by the action, for the sake of that protection.

I found this interesting too; in this example, the pain was not coming from an external source, but rather from Rory himself. This was because he did not fully understand the consequences of his actions, and simply felt compelled to scratch where the skin was itchy. I can tell him, no. I can try to get him to understand that the consequence of that action is pain, but he doesn’t understand, he can’t understand. So the only option is to intervene. To take the injury meant for his face, on my hand instead. The way the Most High God has done for us, his deeply loved children.

Rory may not understand, he may reject me, (though I’d prefer that he didn’t!) but I would still do the same a hundred billion times, to protect him. Even if what I’m protecting him from is himself. Even if he runs away from my arms to hide in a cubby. I will still find him, I will still protect him. I will still love him.