{"id":650,"date":"2010-08-09T19:47:46","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T23:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/?p=650"},"modified":"2010-08-09T20:00:17","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T00:00:17","slug":"call-me-a-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/?p=650","title":{"rendered":"Call Me A Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

My dog stares at my while I eat.\u00a0 She has no manners, no pride, and no sense of shame.\u00a0 She unabashedly stares and begs, watching my every move, hoping I might, by some act of particular mercy or grace, offer her a small tidbit for her eternally empty stomach.\u00a0 It’s very annoying.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Annie watches us eat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why does she do it?\u00a0 Because she is a dog and that’s what dogs do.\u00a0 She knows that any food worth anything comes from the master’s table, so she waits and stares.\u00a0 Why does it annoy me?\u00a0 I guess because it makes me feel a little obligated to share.\u00a0 What I fail to realize is that she is just a dog.\u00a0 She does not think I am obligated to share.\u00a0 She just hopes I will.\u00a0 And so this morning she sat and waited patiently for the crust of my toast, with or without jelly.<\/p>\n

The whole episode reminds me of the story in the Bible where the Canaanite woman comes to Jesus for help.\u00a0 I’ve always thought it sounded like He basically calls her a dog and says it’s not His place to help her.\u00a0 Consider this scripture:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mathew 15:
\n22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
\n\u00a023 But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
\n\u00a024 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
\n\u00a025 Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
\n\u00a026 But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
\n\u00a027 And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
\n\u00a028 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She is persistent, just asking for a crumb, and He rewards her, but I never liked that story.\u00a0 It doesn’t seem proper for Jesus to try to turn someone away just because they are not the right sort of person; to liken them to a dog, and say in effect “It’s not my job to deal with you.”\u00a0 Besides, since I am not a Jew, I suppose that puts me right in the dog house with that lady.\u00a0 That’s what I used to think.\u00a0 Today I am thinking a little differently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jesus says it is not good to give the children’s food to the “little dogs.”\u00a0 The puppies.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But maybe it’s not a bad thing to feed puppies,\u00a0it’s just bad that the children of Israel won’t eat the banquet the Father has served and it’s not a good thing to have to give the arrogant, spoiled children’s food to the puppies.\u00a0 It’s no reflection on the puppies, only on the children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The children are the Jews of His day who would not accept Him and the banquet He had provided.\u00a0 The puppies are those\u00a0like my dog.\u00a0 The humble ones who wait patiently, expecting food\u00a0from the Master’s table.\u00a0 The ones who are not too proud to beg for the Master’s mercy.\u00a0 The ones that know that anything worth having must come from His hand.\u00a0 The ones who depend on Him for their very life.\u00a0 These are the puppies in this story.\u00a0 And we are blessed indeed if we, like the faithful woman from Canaan, can count ourselves as one of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My dog stares at my while I eat.\u00a0 She has no manners, no pride, and no sense of shame.\u00a0 She unabashedly stares and begs, watching my every move, hoping I might, by some act of particular mercy or grace, offer her a small tidbit for her eternally empty stomach.\u00a0 It’s very annoying. Why does she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[40,13,39],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consider","tag-crumbs","tag-dogs","tag-puppies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markspruill.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}