A friend’s dog is staying with us. Another French Bull dog. He is a good looking brindle with brown eyes and a face that you have to love. Carl has been tolerating the invasion of another male bully but there are rules that we must all follow. The most important one is that Carl gets the maximum amount of attention, no matter the circumstances.
This is being lived out as I write this. Leo has begun to bark at Carl and a staring contest is going on right behind my chair. Carl doesn’t want Leo to receive the attention that he believes belongs only to him.
A couple of minutes ago, I had Carl in my lap and was stroking his back as Leo slipped beside the chair. What happened next is so typical of my little dog. Carl began to show his dismay by growling under his breath. Here he was, in his favorite spot in the whole world, and he couldn’t enjoy it because of his obsessive thoughts about what might happen.
How often do we get sucked into thinking about all the things that might happen and disregard the pleasantries of the present? We can be enjoying a beautiful fall day without too many worries, and a thought about the future pops into our brain and takes over. Instead of sending the thought on its way, we allow the thought to make its home in our heads.
As I cruised through the Bible to find verses that can help us, I was amazed at how many verses addressed worry or thinking about things we need to stay away from. Proverbs 55:22 states, “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.”
So instead of worrying about situations that we don’t have control over, go to God in prayer. And when we pray, start with thanking Him for the power He possesses to overcome any and all situations that we may be worried about.
It is too bad that Carl doesn’t understand how to pray and move beyond the worries that have consumed him. Instead he converts over to the piercing howl that I have grown to know as his way of drawing more attention his way.
