God of Pets

A friend on the CTC "blog-ring" whose name is Beth just had a post about how excited her puppy is when Beth gets home: "She almost breaks through the front door when she sees me. It is just about the most amazing feeling in the world. It makes me wonder if God goes through the same thing when we enter his house."

Of course, we would be the dogs in that metaphor. So as the (local) reigning Queen of Analogies, let's think about pets in general. Can we learn about God from our pets? Well, I have gained a few insights about Him by thinking about pets, so here they are.

• To start off with Beth's example, we see how excited our pets are when we return, as if they can't stand to be away from us for five minutes. Wouldn't it be great to be that purely excited about the mere presence of God? Wouldn't it be great to want to follow Him around all day, expecting that He will give good things because we trust that He is the kind of person who enjoys giving us good things?
• God is so marvelously extravagant! He didn't have to create a world that would come to include birds in so many colors or dogs in so many sizes. He didn't have to give "personalities" to animals. He didn't need to make anything cute. He could have made everything monochrome and bland if He wanted to. But He didn't want to. He enjoys His own creativity, and seeing the results of it. So we, too, can enjoy our God-given creativity, and can thank Him for giving us that awesome way to image Him.
• Sometimes my bird's nails get so long he has trouble walking, and he starts getting caught in the carpet. So I have to trim his nails sometimes, which involves holding him in one hand and trimming the nails with the other hand. Every single time I do it, he squirms around as if I'm going to kill him, or as if I may cut his foot off, even though there is strong evidence that he still has his life and both feet. The squirming always makes the process longer, and quite possibly more painful. Last time we went through this I started thinking about how when things are going "wrong" in my life (i.e. when some situation is causing me pain), I squirm all around and assume that something terrible is happening, when really maybe I need to take a deep breath, look down, and remind myself that (literally and metaphorically) I still have both my feet, and that that says something about the one who is holding me.