Chief is a great dane, and the breed is normally skinnier than most, but recently, we noticed that Chief had passed the line between healthy skinny and gone to the quarter-a-day-for-this-dying-dog skinny. We would feed Chief every day without fail, but he would simply leave his bowl quite full after nibbling just a little bit on what we gave him. I was beginning to worry that one of the local dog fanatics would see and think something of it!
Finally, after this going on for a few weeks with no change even after trying to change up his food, we decided it was time to visit the vet. On his day off, Teagan did all of the hard work of taking an incredibly large, but incredibly timid dog to the vet. But the blood work that the ran came back completely fine. Our horse sized dog was as healthy as one, he was just simply not taking in the food that his body needed.
We learned that part of this was due to the quality of food that we were feeding him. Currently, we were trying out Kibbles and Bits. We were fully aware of how low of a quality that Kibbles is, but Teagan and I were just trying something new for the sake of seeing if Chief would eat more. Another reason that Chief had not been eating as much as he should have was because we had the food available to him all day. He had no anticipation of his mealtime. As a result of this lack of schedule, Chief was eating far less than he should have been.
Armed with this new knowledge, a tub of yogurt, and some packets of powdered medicine to help our dane pack on the pounds, we optimistically started to become more strict about when Chief was allowed to eat. His new mealtime was 8 o'clock. As soon as Teagan was home from a long shift of selling Toyotas, Chief was served a healthy concoction of the powder, yogurt, and some rather expensive dog food. And the schedule worked almost immediately. I was astonished at how quickly I began to notice Chief putting on a nice layer of weight. With the implementation of a schedule and better nutrition, we now had a new dog. He looked incredibly healthy, and no longer made the song "In the Arms of an Angel" come to my mind.
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| Don't worry, he got none of the wine. |
Now dog's are smart, but only to an extent. Our little guy didn't even know that he was starving himself or how to eat enough, until we made sure to set a stricter schedule for him. So for the most part, I would say that we as humans have been given a little more sense and personal awareness. We might even laugh a little bit at poor old Chief. Not out of spite, but because he was completely healthy! He just honestly didn't know how to properly take care of his nutrition! What he needed was right in front of him, but he chose not to partake in what was essentially keeping him alive, because he was not conditioned to. And to be honest, it's so silly, it's laughable! Clean bill of health, but we need to teach our dog to eat. Who would have thought?
But aren't we that way sometimes? Probably not with actual food. I would be willing to bet that none of you have real problems remembering when and how much to feed yourselves. But how do we look spiritually? Is our spirit man ribby and boney? If we could see our spirit man, would we try and donate a quarter a day because of the guilt his malnourished appearance fills us with? This comparison has been used time and time again, but until we went through the process of having a ridiculously skinny dog and finding out that there was nothing wrong with him, it had never occurred to me how ridiculous it is. Ridiculous, I mean, that we have the resources-the food right in front of us, but we still decide to not eat.
We go to church, but think about the pot roast and the Sunday game the whole time. We have our bible in our nightstand, but haven't touched it in weeks. The solution to our spiritual dryness-the dehydration and malnutrition is right in front of us. But we do not partake. We are as senseless as Chief was.
I have been down this road before. More than once actually, because starvation is a slow process. You don't skip your dinner one day and discover that you look like an impoverished orphan the next. It's meal after meal; skipped prayer time after skipped prayer time that eventually adds up. And then one day, you wake up so disconnected from God that something inside of you starts screaming loud enough for you to hear. Somethings not okay! I am dying in here! Every part of life is too much for me to bear! You were once fine. The things you are facing use to be simple hills, and now they are looming mountains with no way of escape. That's when we need to stop in our tracks, about-face, and go back to God.
In Middle School, I played the clarinet and saxophone in band. Our school in San Antonio had a fantastic band director, and one day, while instructing our 13-15 year old class on why it was so incredibly important to practice daily, he said something that I have never forgotten. "When you don't practice one day, you know. Two days, your director knows. And by a week, your audience knows." Practicing musically, athleticly, and even spiritually is gradual in it's effectiveness. It takes a while to get to a certain level, and it takes a lesser while (but a while still) to slide back down from where you once fought to be.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a spot if great inner turmoil, spiritual strife, or spiritual dryness. We need not look to the heavens, crying "Why me? This always happens to me!" We are not dogs that we should forget how to feed ourselves. We must stay connected to the source, and dive back into the word. Don't let shame keep you from coming back to God. There is now no condemnation in Christ. None. Right now this minute, there is none. Don't take the devils whispers of deception as truth. Run back to God. Continue to feast upon the word. Eventually we can regain stability and return back to health.
When I was a very young girl, around six or so, my parents payed for me to take piano lessons. At the time, we lived in Ohio while all of our family lived in Texas. Every Christmas break, we would make the long drive across the country to see our family. When not on vacation, I was pretty good about taking time each day to practice. But we opted not to haul our keyboard with us whenever we trekked all the way to grandmother's house, so I did not practice during that period of time. When we came back from vacation, my teacher was less than happy that I had not practiced. Perhaps I did a poor job of explaining the exactly why I had not practiced during our break, but the interaction with my piano teacher was not a great one. I remember crying, as I did for just about everything, and not continuing my lessons anymore.
Now looking back, I feel bad for the poor woman. I was pretty prone to tears, and I probably could have gone back, continued my lesson's, and been just fine. But because of that day, my piano teacher would not be teaching me anymore. Despite any residual feelings of disappointment in the way things unfolded, though, I can know that I will never have to face a similar situation with God.
When we decide to reconnect with him after a long hiatus, God is not looking down on us with a lecture ready. God is the father of the prodigal son who ran when he saw his son from a distance. We can expect the exact same thing from God when we realize that our spiritual starvation needs to come to an end. God is full of mercy and love. All we need is to come back to him.
So there is no need to sit in our squalor and refuse to take in what is good for us. Poor old Chief didn't know any better, but we know that in order to experience peace in our lives, we must stay rooted and connected to God. When we are feeding our spirit man on a regular basis, we will be in good health and fully able to weather the various winters that are included in this life. So it's not about doing, it's about holding fast to our Father. We must be honest with ourselves. If we find that we have been neglecting our spirit, all we need to do is come back to our Father. He is faithful to heal, and soon we will wonder why we ever left.
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