I’m working from home today. It’s a great working environment: calm and focused. Our dog lies peacefully at my feet. Until a vehicle dares to enter our cul-de-sac, that is. Then our 25-pound Australian Labradoodle leaps to the window, both paws on the window sill, and turns into a ferocious beast.
The Amazon delivery guy pulls up to the curb, jumps out with a package in tow, and places it at the front door. Our dog howls as though a cadre of gunmen have encircled our property. This is no sociable bark to his neighborhood doggie friends: this is a protect-the-house-at-all-costs-bay. The deliveryman hustles back to his van and pulls out of the cul-de-sac.
My dog settles back down at my feet. He’s protected the home from another invasion. In his mind, he’s thwarted hundreds of burglaries.
The truth, of course, is that the Amazon delivery driver posed no threat. The conclusion our dog should have drawn is that there is no need to bark at delivery men.
My dog isn’t the only one who draws faulty conclusions.
In the book of Judges, time after time the judges misunderstand God’s gracious response to them. Gideon faithlessly throws out a fleece, unwilling to take God at his word, and God mercifully gives him a sign. Gideon asks for another sign later, still unmoved by the security of God’s word. Samson is led by his fleshly lusts, and when God graciously doesn’t remove his mantle of leadership, he continues to follow his foolish impulses.
Jepthah treats Yahweh like a pagan god. Foolishly thinking that God is honored by human sacrifice like the pagan gods, Jepthah wickedly promises to kill the first person he sees. When that person turns out to be his daughter and Jepthah still follows through, his wickedness is multiplied. God mercifully doesn’t strike him down, so he continues worshiping a god of his own making, controlled by such petty things as vows.
On and on it goes.
I’m led to ponder: how many times have I drawn the wrong conclusions in my own life? How often have I misinterpreted the data? What conclusions should I re-evaluate? What feedback loops are broken?
Where have I turned God’s mercy into license? Where have I turned my folly into wisdom?
I’ve had so many of my own foolish beliefs turn to dust. Take just one. I used to think that Christ’s admonition to turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39) and Paul’s declaration that he was a servant to all (1 Cor. 9:19) meant that creating relational boundaries was unbiblical. But the book of Proverbs coaches us that we are to approach relationships with a godly person, a fool, and an evil person differently (Dan Allender’s book Bold Love changed my thinking on this). And Jesus refused to be a pawn for the Pharisees and Paul chose to part ways with individuals. I was wrong.
My poor wife put up with years of my relational foolishness. I felt like, to be a true minister of the gospel, I couldn’t draw relational lines. I’ve come to see that there are times when wise living means that we need to protect ourselves from toxic relationships. This one example is just the tip of the iceberg of my foolish beliefs, of course.
I’ve explained very gently to our dog that his barking is unnecessary and yet, to date, he has ignored me. Where in my life do I need to seek God’s wisdom? Where is his Word gently rebuking me? What wise friends do I need to pull into my life to help me see blind spots? Where am I learning the wrong lesson?
Let’s stop barking at the front door long enough to learn what God has for us.
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