Dogs, Bumper Stickers and Charles Spurgeon

While we were shopping I noticed three things I would like to mention:

First, have you ever seen the little stores set up in the mall that sell treats and snacks for your dog? I have walked by it many, many times. Today when we walked by and I saw the cute little treats, some having been dipped in chocolate (or, so it appeared), I thought, “Do dogs even care? Do dogs even know?” I do not think a dog thinks about how cute or interesting a doggy treat is or even if it is shaped like a bone (which it really isn’t since a dog biscuit doesn’t actually look like anything a dog would recognize as a bone but is merely shaped into what we have come to except as a characterization of a bone.) I know from past experience that when I have given a dog a tasty piece of left over steak or even a piece of dried bread, they chomp it and swallow it fast. They don’t savor the flavor. They barely chew it. A dog eats. That is what a dog does. But we insert our perspective on the dog. It is easier for us to understand our dog if we allow ourselves to believe that the dog thinks like we think. It is easier to have a relationship with a dog if we imagine he thinks like we think. We assume that during the Christmas season our dog would like the Santa shaped dog biscuit just like they would prefer the green biscuit around St. Patrick’s Day. (As you may know, dogs don’t see color they way we do. For example, dogs see blue-green as white. Green, yellow and orange all look alike to dogs.)

The point: If we find it more comfortable to interact with dogs by assuming they think like we think, taste food the way we taste it and see color the way we see it then it is very likely that we also find it more comfortable to interact with God the same way. We find it easier to imagine that God agrees with what we think, likes the things that we like and sees sin in the same light that we see it. This is wrong. A man and a dog perceive things differently just like man and God perceive things differently.

The second thing I want to mention is the $1,000,000,000 bill Toni saw laying by the cash register at a clothing store in the mall. Toni saw it first and asked the clerk what it was? (Everyone knows that a $1,000,000,000 bill shouldn’t be left lying outside the cash drawer.) When Toni picked up the $1,000,000,000 bill I could see it had a picture of Charles Spurgeon on it. Everyone was surprised that I knew who was on the $1,000,000,000 bill. When we looked closer at the portrait it had in tiny little letters “Spurgeon” and the text on the bill explained the way of salvation. The clerk said that every Sunday someone leaves a $1,000,000,000 bill in their store. Apparently some church or some Christian was bringing the truth of Jesus Christ to the mall with false $1,000,000,000 bills.

The third and final thing I saw was a bumper sticker in the parking lot that said “My Boston terrier is smarter than your honor roll student.” I instantly found myself evaluating the bumper sticker with three personal thoughts:

• I wouldn’t put a big square bumper sticker on my car.
• I wouldn’t put a big square bumper sticker on my car about my dog.
• I wouldn’t put a big square bumper sticker on my car about my dog so I could insult you concerning your child.

As I walked into the store I continued to think how pointless that bumper sticker was..

So this is what I thought about while I carried shopping bags around the mall:

• I thought about how we elevate dogs up and de-elevate God down to our level
• How we use false money to spread truth 
• Why we feel the need to insult others with pointless bumper stickers.