By: John McCann
« Back to Devotions PageEwww! Gross! Yes, but hear me out.
The other day my dog, Hans, was starving. He follows me around the house with his expectant eyes. Hey I am hungry. Feed me – feed me. “Oh fine,” I say. “OK OK. Let’s go get your food.”
I get this great “spoil-your-dog” type of dog food. Lamb and rice mixed with veggies. He loves the stuff. I mix in a little of his “petite bite” dry food and, BAM! Dinner is served.
He dives into his bowl like it contains the last crumb of food in the house. Fully gorging himself, he stammers outside, hung over by his food binge, and proceeds to vomit all over my patio. What!? You are not getting any more food you dumb dog! In disgust I walk away, adding another immediate to-do item onto the list. Armed with my tools to clean up the mess, I return only to find Hans, yep, you guessed it, lapping up the vomit! Dog, do not even think of coming over here and giving me a kiss. That is simply uncalled for!
Of course, God, in His humorous way, pops Proverbs 26:11 into my head. “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” So then I start thinking that this is how I act when God gives me a blessing! I follow him around and ask for this and that and try to be loyal and stay close to home. I may even greet Him when I get to His home. Sometimes I just want to be near my God. Have him hold and love me, other times I want Him to bath me and groom me and take away the stench that’s on me. Of course there are the times when I want him to care for me and give me fresh water and good food. But like my dog, I too, take what my Master has given me and give into self-diligence. My weak self control is trampled by my sinful desire for more and better. After a time of gluttony with my sin I vomit all over God’s porch. Unlike me, He humbly says, “poor sinner, why did you not trust me to provide for you? Why do you lose your self control? I promised to care for you.” Matthew 6: 25-27 says “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” And I knowing this in my mind, but not feeling it in my heart return to my vomit and partake as if that is normal. God have mercy on me – a sinner who loves his own vomit. Forgive me.
See the sad thing is that Hans, my dog, does not even realize that eating his vomit is considered gross and disgusting. That is what sin does in our lives. The sins that we are unable to turn over to God, the ones that have become our pet sins will destroy us. Satan will work through these sins and crush the life that God designed for us. Sin makes us deaf to the Holy Spirit. You and I know lapping up our own vomit is simply not right. Yet spiritually that is exactly what we do. Many of us know that we are doing wrong, but we are unwilling or unable to change our ways. That is because sin changes our desires and habits. We must make decided changes in our lives. We must choose God - daily, hourly, moment by, sinful, moment lest we return to our own vomit. Use your power of choice to find peace in the Almighty God.
Questions from a vomit cleaning God:
1)What sin do you keep coming back to?
2)You may have made the decision to follow Me in your mind. When will you follow in your heart?
3)Do you want peace? Will you please truly confess, by name, your sins to me? Please know that your vomit is not attractive and choose to be cleansed by the Holy Spirit. I love you.
Prayer:
Master and Provider, I love you, want you and need you. My mind is sick with the drunkenness of sin and self reliance. I think “I” can when I know that “I” can’t. You are the one, the only one, who can save a fool like me from returning to my folly. Oh Lord and Redeemer, take this broken soul and cover it with your love and the blood of the man whom I killed with my sin – Jesus. Please make me as Isaiah 1:8 says, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” Thank you Father - Amen.
