The Blonde is a huge animal lover. Something she hid from me most of our marriage (just kidding).
One year for Christmas Santa Claus brought the now 24-year-old second- grade teacher who used to live at our house (youngest daughter Klaire) a Shih Tzu puppy named Buster.
The trouble with this gift was that Buster decided Jennifer was his mom and not Klaire. Buster slept with us at night for more than a decade. A couple of years ago, blind, crippled up like an old man and his inside body parts not working too well, we had to say goodbye to Ol’ Buster. It was a hard goodbye.
We had the world’s greatest Border Collie mix named Champ for about 10 years as well. He was my dog, but my favorite coffee house manager (youngest son Jack) took him to Dallas to live with him for a couple of years.
Then Champ (is that the best dog name ever?) came home just in time for Klaire to take him to Houston, where he lived until his passing a year or so ago. Very sad. Champ was the definition of the family pet. He was one of those dogs that was always smiling, always happy and hard not to like.
Somewhere in the last six years, Klaire adopted a three-legged cat named Oscar and somehow Oscar ended up living with us. Oscar was a great cat because he minded his own business.
Last year, we found Oscar with some injuries lying in our yard. Oscar’s passing was a surprise and with the other pets passing it was a struggle. Burying our loved ones is hard regardless if they are human or our other favorite people (our pets).
Okay, that gets me to 2023. Last week it was time, so we tracked down a Rough Collie puppy and moved him into our Polly Pocket house. His name is Captain. His real name is Champ, but Jennifer and Klaire won’t let me call him that. Did I say Champ is the best dog’s name ever? Captain is, however, the second-best dog name.
Captain is good, as smart as the 24-year-old second-grade teacher, but he is a puppy. Champ had just about chewed the deck off the back of our house before he stopped teething and I’m wondering if we will have any furniture left by the time Captain is a year old.
The problem is Captain is a puppy and that makes me think about some Christians. What I mean is a lot of people find Jesus and stop growing in what is supposed to be the starting gate of their relationship with Christ. They stay a puppy.
The Apostle Paul talked about this immaturity in 1st Corinthians 3:2, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh.”
And we see this issue again in Hebrews 5:12, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
1st Peter tells us to “grow up” after we are once saved.
Can I encourage you today to grow up, mature and not to stay a spiritual puppy?
There are several spiritual disciplines needed for your relationship with Christ to get beyond the puppy stage.
If you need help with these, hit me up. God is for you so let’s get going and we can grow up in Christ together!
He told me to tell you that.
“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe..” (Proverbs 29:25)
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