‘Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere’ – Psalm 84:10
Today my family and I traveled to the shops at Rancocas Woods. It’s a lovely spot we had recently discovered. A friend had told us about his son’s secondhand book shop, Second Time Books, and we went to check it out a couple of weeks ago. It’s a great store, you should go sometime. And while you are there you should check out the other shops. There’s a store for antiques, crafts, a snack shop, and a café with an amazing courtyard. I hope to spend many days in the months ahead writing in that courtyard with a cup of coffee at my side. It’s perfect.
It was in that courtyard today that I had an encounter. As we approached the café and neighboring antique store, we were surprisingly greeted by two dogs laying in the middle of the courtyard path. Their owner was nearby pruning trees, and they were just the picture of contentment and happiness, lounging on the cool pavement and, seemingly, eagerly waiting someone to come by. We did, and apparently suited their fancy just fine. They were as loveable a couple of dogs as you could ever hope to meet (I think they were German Shepherd-Lab mixes, although their owner claimed they were part Collie). They came right up to us, to me particularly for some reason, begging to be petted. They didn’t have to beg much. Having lost my best canine friend Corky in recent months (a story I have not been able to write about yet; it’s been a year of losses on too many fronts), I have been seriously dog deprived. Perhaps that was what they sensed in their desire to be near me.
The owner stopped his pruning and chatted with us a bit. He explained how his dogs were friendly to everyone, which is why he didn’t have them on leashes. He was a nice fellow; almost as warm and inviting as his dogs.
The key moment that prompts me to write came when my family and I attempted to say goodbye to our new four-legged friends. The male dog (there was one of each gender) allowed us to pass, but the female would hear nothing of it. She nuzzled my leg, stared at me with her lovely eyes, wagged her tail, and otherwise enticed me to stay. I gave her what I thought was a final pat on the head and began to move away, but it was then I learned she was dead serious about keeping me. She literally sat on my foot as if to say, ‘Oh no mister. You’re not going anywhere!’ The little darling enjoyed my company and intended to keep me as her hostage.
The owner tried to call her, but she would not budge. So he told me with a smile, ‘Well, there’s only one thing to do. Stop petting her.’ It was then I realized that I hadn’t. I had succumbed to her wiles and had given her what she wanted. As long as I continued to do that, she was not going to move, even when called by her master. So I stopped rubbing her head, he called, and the little dickens finally allowed me to move on.
I considered the encounter just a cute episode in the course of an ordinary day. But as I thought more deeply later, it dawned on me that my encounter with those dogs, especially the female, was nothing less than a parable of life with God.
God always waits for us, doesn’t he? Not just on courtyard paths, but on every path we travel. God is also happy and content. In fact, God didn’t have to create us humans to be so. I believe it was Dallas Willard who answered, when asked what God did before he created the universe, ‘He was enjoying themselves.’ Father, Son, and Spirit, the three persons of the Trinity are fully capable of happiness without us. And yet. God seems to long for our company. He eagerly waits for one of us (or all of us) to come by, and whichever one takes a moment to sit a spell will suit His fancy just fine. If the Bible’s story of salvation history teaches us anything, it teaches that God, in each of His persons, practically begs for our company. You could even say he’s dying to spend time with us, maybe especially those of us who need him the most.
In my own life, I find myself so distracted at times, so eager to move on to whatever it is I have to do or wherever it is I have to go, that even when I run into him in the middle of my paths, I don’t always linger as I should. I’ll spend a few minutes, but then try to move on, ignoring God’s efforts, his enticements, to get me to stay. Such is my mania that I don’t even pay attention when he sits on my foot. Maybe I feel as if I have received what I needed from God in the first moments of the encounter, and so move on to fill other needs. What a shame. I should be long to stay as long as possible, not only for my sake, but for His.
In his book, Love Big, Be Well, Winn Collier writes that prayer isn’t first and foremost about having our requests met. It is simply communion with God. When we spend time with God, the thing that matters is that ‘we have been with God, and God has been with us.’ What a remarkable thing it is that the God of Creation longs for this: to love and receive love. Isn’t that what we were made for? Isn’t that what we should long for too?
The next time God sits on my foot, I think I’ll stick around his courts for a while. There isn’t anything I have to do that’s more important than that.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent