Called to be Free!

I had complaints about the previous post. It seems I'd made people cry. "Write something funny now to make up" they sniffed, "You owe us!". I'm trying people. Honestly I am. But I just don't feel very funny, only plenty groggy! You would too if you've just written and discarded atleast 5 different drafts. Looks like my fountain of funnies has dried up. So here I am making a full confession, hoping wildly that by the end of it I would have somehow stumbled upon and made a point!

Let's see now....what's the funniest thing I can lay eyes on right now? Ha! Saved! My sweeping gaze has just set itself on today's funny inspiration - my gorgeous baby golden retriever Blossom, sleeping upside down with her legs in the air as usual, carefree and unworried (much to my mother's constant mortification - "Blossom, you shameless puppy!! What will people say?"). Blossom is 4 months old and thinks she is as light as she was, 4 months ago! If you approach her like all the other poor fools she has beguiled by her gentle golden good looks, you will quickly find yourself wrestling with a puppy monster who's fiercest ambition in life is to climb all over you and maybe try to stand on your head! So from a safe distance, she's gotta be the sweetest li'l bow-wow you ever set eyes on.

Blossy like all babies cannot be trusted to be by herself for even nano seconds. She eats everything she finds (would you believe raw vegetables!) and has appointed herself the official family shredder of anything that makes a ripping noise! So, much to her disappointment, she's always been supervised and tied up. But lately though, she's been pretending to be slightly grown up and has been on her best behaviour. So idiots that we were, we decided to give her free reign of our large garden for the very first time of her life! Blossom sat there and waved that non-stop tail looking up at us adoringly as we debated whether or not to unchain her completely for the first time ever. That 'look-at-me-I'm-so-innocent' look lasted just until the chain clasp came off. And then, she took off like a shot!

We watched amused as she rocketed around the garden hitting every tree in the way in excitement and I was very forcefully reminded of George of the Jungle! We stood watching the golden blur zipping around, jumping into piles of leaves, chasing leaves and tracking imaginery enemies through the undergrowth for a while till we got bored with her antics. Deciding to leave her to her own devices, we returned to our work inside the house while she carried on like a mad dog in the garden.

Some time later, I looked up idly to see her grinning doggy face running past me into the house. In seconds, she happily wagged at me and ran out again. I smiled at her indulgently and returned my attention to my work. But while she repeated the into-the-house-and-out-of-it game, something was niggling in the back of my head. As she had flashed past heading both ways, I was sure I'd caught a glimpse of something in her mouth.

A casual looksee yielded magnificient results. It looked like our little lady had spent the last half hour joyfully filling the house with wood and bracken and dead leaves and every other mouldy thing she could get her jaws on! And what was worse, she seemed to be compensating the garden whose treasures she was robbing, by delivering our clothes to it in return....in some weird doggy barter transaction! I was just in time to get hold of her as she trotted out confidently again with one end of what looked like my underclothing dangling from her mouth! Caught, she dropped the red-hot proof of her doggy sin and zipped into the garden only to return again with yet another piece of fungus-infected bark! But this time I was ready for her and she found herself locked out by the grille door. Check out the photo below for the comically sad expression she was trying on me to worm her way inside! We spent a long time laughing at her that day.

Blossom's canine behaviour funnily reminds me of human behaviour. We need to be supervised all the time too. Unmanned traffic signals are violated, unattended shop counters are shoplifted, unsupervised employees slack off and unwatched students cheat at tests! This is by no means newly evolved behaviour. It dates back to Adam in Eden who left to himself, managed to get us all thrown out of Paradise; Israel in the desert, devoid of Moses' leadership for mere days frenziedly worshipped a golden calf; the apostles in the garden of Gethsemene left alone for mere hours fell asleep instead of praying and David on his terrace one golden afternoon, took another man's wife 'cos he thought no one was watching!

In Christ we are made free. Free from sin and free from death. Joyful news indeed. But a word of caution reader.....that freedom comes with responsibility. Let loose from our burdens and sin, it is easy to go overboard and live life in a way that is unacceptable to God. Remember that the God who set you free also expects you to behave. Blossom's bad-bad was funny. Our abuse of God's freedom is not.

Galatians 5:13 says, "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love." So unless you wanna be counted on the same intellectual level as my puppy, some shaping up is suggested...pronto!