Old Lazy Dog?
“Israel's watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain.’
– Isaiah 56:10-11 NIV
I know what you’re thinking…
“Old Lazy Dog?”
“What does that have to do with things of faith?”
“What can that possibly have to do with me?”
Well… Let me explain a little bit…
The word DOG… in this instance… stands for Disciple of God…
D – Disciple
O – Of
G – God
Now, what has happened is that we… especially those of us who have been westernized or rather Americanized… have become LAZY in our faith and discipleship…
LAZY as Disciples of Jesus...
We have somehow developed a sort of a lassiez faire attitude and like that old lazy dog that just snoozes on (or rather “under”) the porch all day long, we’ve gotten lazy in our faith walk… and our discipleship.
And, unfortunately, things of faith have become OLD, even stagnant. Thus, we have become complacent… and apathetic… with a “what-ever and a wave your head, shrug your shoulders and put your hand in the face” attitude becoming more and more common place in our lives.
Old and Lazy… I’m not sure about you, but that’s not how I want to be known to any one… much less to Jesus.
You see, it’s not necessarily about working harder… or doing more… or somehow trying to earn our way into His heart or into heaven… but to come to expect our relationship with Jesus to be new every morning… and to put our faith to work in such a way that we bring glory and honor and praise to Him. It’s about truly becoming like your favorite dog… Loyal… Pleasing… Hungry… Loving… Protecting… and Doing and Giving our all with a joyful and joy-filled heart.
For most of us, there was a day and a time that we can look back on our life… look back on our faith journey… and remember the hunger we had for Him and His Word… the desire we had to know Him more and better and to obey and please Him… the loyalty we had for Him and for the things that are true and good and right.
Thus, the Old Lazy Dog blog (Great Day Addendum), the book Dog Like Faith (in progress) and the oldlazydog.com site are charged with helping us all go a little deeper in our faith walk... to know Him more and better… and maybe… just maybe… help us hear Him more clearly and ultimately obey His call and direction for our life.
Keep the Faith… Carpe Diem
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it–he will be blessed in what he does.”
– James 1:22-25 NIV
