The Center

Levi, our little Carin Terrier, was at my bedside at 3am this morning, ready for the day to begin - I was not and made him lie back down.  When I got up at 4am, he was ready for playtime and promptly jumped up on my chair and attacked my left hand, trying to draw me into a faux battle.  I wasn't biting and he gave up biting shortly.

At least, it appeared he had given up.  He walked across the room and exited through his doggie door, but he was not through, he was selecting a weapon for battle.  He found his plastic bottle, came racing back into the house and flying up on the chair dropping it in my lap so I could throw it.  I still wasn't biting as I was reading from my Bible, preparing to write this blog and trying to enjoy some quiet time with God.

Unphased by my unwillingness to toss the bottle, he dropped the bottle off the edge of the chair and jumped down on it, pushing it with his nose, grabbing it in his teeth and flinging it into the air to continue the chase.  Levi was not accepting the notion that it was not playtime because, in Levi's world, the axis of the universe travels through him.  His time, his way, his wants - those are the things that matter.  My being asleep or being tired or being busy was not the point and was no excuse.

He has a clear understanding of life, however misguided and often ignored by my wife and myself: What he wants, when he wants it is what must happen for the world to be right.  He simply has not grasped the reality that the world his lives in belongs to my wife and me, that what he gets is what we give or allow, that while we may provide what he wants, when he wants it, we have plans and purposes that will override his desires, however strongly he may feel about them.

He asks for things in various ways including a nip on the hand, a whimper, a scratch on the leg or a long, silent stare as he sits directly in front of us, waiting for us to attend to his wishes.  In a somewhat similar fashion as we come before God, expressing our wishes in prayer, Levi comes before us, fully expecting to receive what he is asking for as his desires are paramount, at least, in his mind they are.

Sadly, as Christians, we act too much like this 7 month old pup.  We too think the axis of the universe is us and our wants, desires and needs are of utmost importance, that not to get what we ask for signifies a need for a realignment of the galaxy.  We pray, God is to listen and then we are to get what we want - that is the proper world order to ore than a few.

The televangelist are there, backing up this world-view with their "name it and claim it" teaching in which we get what we ask for if we just have enough faith (often requiring some monetary faith-seed giving on our part to their ministry).  They quote the Scripture "ask and you will receive" (Matt 7. ) but fail to apply the larger context, which clarifies saying, "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us---whatever we ask---we know that we have what we asked of him." (1 Jn 5:14-15).

Did you notice the "according to his will" part?  That clarifies where the center of the universe actually is, not in us but in Him.  We are not the reason, our purpose is not what it's all about, our life is not the center - God's purpose is.  In his purpose, he has room and desire for us.  He wants our best, he wants to give but according to his purpose not ours.  God's Sovereignty, not our desires, is The Center. Jus' Say'n.