We never kennel the dogs when we leave for a week. Australian cattle dogs need to run at full tilt for a distance. A daily walk behind the vet’s office simply will not do. So we leave them with the full five acres to run in, a bed of warm, clean hay in the doghouse, and a neighbor to keep them fed and watered.
When we come home you would think we had been away for a year. They race up to the gate the instant they hear us coming—they must recognize the engine. Before we can get it unlocked they are prancing and leaping, squealing high-pitched yelps, even whining a little because we aren’t fast enough to get through that gate and back to them. They push each other out of the way, each one trying to get to us first, tails wagging hard, tongues at the ready for wet kisses and reassuring sniffs. Then they race the car back to the house, ready to do it all again.
I don’t think anyone has ever greeted us the way our dogs do. Even when I am gone just a few hours I get a better greeting from them than from Keith, and truth to be told, he probably gets a better one than I give too. They must think we have been gone far longer than we actually have. We have started calling it “dog time.” When I am leaving for just a couple of hours I tell them we will be back in a few days, at least it will seem like that to them. If it’s going to be most of the day, I tell them we’ll be back in a week. And when we’re gone a week I always say, “We’ll be home in two or three months.” I know they don’t understand any of this, but it reminds me of what our absences mean to our pets, so I give them a little extra attention the day before we leave and the day we get back.
Actually, people have the same problem of perspective. Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation...But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, 2 Pet 3:3,4,8.
People who take that verse literally are missing the point. It isn’t that each day is exactly 1000 years with God. God dwells outside of time. He doesn’t count years any more than He counts days. Therefore we should not try to bind an Eternal God with our notions of passing time. When we do, we give up on Him, His promises, and the hope they are meant to give us.
We also start making far too much of this life. When life becomes the destination instead of the journey, you place more importance on it than on preparing yourself for the eternal life in an eternal home. If eternity were pictured as all the water in all the oceans and rivers and lakes on this Earth, our lives are not even one drop of it, and 1000 years perhaps a scant teaspoon. But even that is a feeble attempt to explain eternity because it cannot be contained. It cannot be measured and never runs out.
Just remember this: For all practical purposes, eternity will come very soon for each of us, for once you die time ends for you. It could happen far sooner than you think. Illness strikes. Accidents happen, and then all the time in the world you thought you had will be gone. Make the most of it now.
O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah, Psa 39:4,5.
Dene Ward
When we come home you would think we had been away for a year. They race up to the gate the instant they hear us coming—they must recognize the engine. Before we can get it unlocked they are prancing and leaping, squealing high-pitched yelps, even whining a little because we aren’t fast enough to get through that gate and back to them. They push each other out of the way, each one trying to get to us first, tails wagging hard, tongues at the ready for wet kisses and reassuring sniffs. Then they race the car back to the house, ready to do it all again.
I don’t think anyone has ever greeted us the way our dogs do. Even when I am gone just a few hours I get a better greeting from them than from Keith, and truth to be told, he probably gets a better one than I give too. They must think we have been gone far longer than we actually have. We have started calling it “dog time.” When I am leaving for just a couple of hours I tell them we will be back in a few days, at least it will seem like that to them. If it’s going to be most of the day, I tell them we’ll be back in a week. And when we’re gone a week I always say, “We’ll be home in two or three months.” I know they don’t understand any of this, but it reminds me of what our absences mean to our pets, so I give them a little extra attention the day before we leave and the day we get back.
Actually, people have the same problem of perspective. Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation...But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, 2 Pet 3:3,4,8.
People who take that verse literally are missing the point. It isn’t that each day is exactly 1000 years with God. God dwells outside of time. He doesn’t count years any more than He counts days. Therefore we should not try to bind an Eternal God with our notions of passing time. When we do, we give up on Him, His promises, and the hope they are meant to give us.
We also start making far too much of this life. When life becomes the destination instead of the journey, you place more importance on it than on preparing yourself for the eternal life in an eternal home. If eternity were pictured as all the water in all the oceans and rivers and lakes on this Earth, our lives are not even one drop of it, and 1000 years perhaps a scant teaspoon. But even that is a feeble attempt to explain eternity because it cannot be contained. It cannot be measured and never runs out.
Just remember this: For all practical purposes, eternity will come very soon for each of us, for once you die time ends for you. It could happen far sooner than you think. Illness strikes. Accidents happen, and then all the time in the world you thought you had will be gone. Make the most of it now.
O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah, Psa 39:4,5.
Dene Ward
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