A Pesky Puppy Proves a Point

   The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9

We don’t control anything.

Oh, we think we do! We make to-do lists and check them off! We are productive people, after all. We plan and make it happen!

Wrong.

Oh, we plan, but we can’t make anything happen. Every time something goes well, it was because God showed up to bless it, and He doesn’t need to bless things the way we imagine.

A Divine Reminder

Recently I parked my car in our driveway and as soon as I exited, locked the doors by pressing a button on my key fob. As I pressed, the car alarm went off. My first thought was that I had accidentally pressed the alarm button on my key fob instead of the lock button, but as I pressed the button to stop the alarm, the blaring continued. I soon figured out it was my daughter’s car that was alarming, not mine!

My daughter comes outside.

Is that my car?

Yes, I said.

Mom, I can’t find my keys!

While she furiously tore the house apart, the alarm was incessant. Every neighbor heard it and we were helpless to stop it. Thankfully, after five minutes, the alarm ceased and did not start again.

We were clueless.

I Googled something like, “car alarms going off randomly” and prepared myself for the alarm to randomly go off again in the middle of the night. My daughter eventually found her spare key fob, so she was set to go to work the next day, and if the alarm decided to go off again in the middle of the night, she would be able to stop it.

But what set off the car alarm?

24 hours pass by. The next evening I was in the yard watching our dogs play. Our daughter’s retriever started to play too roughly with our son’s puppy in the corner of our yard, so I walked over to calm their playing. To my surprise, I saw this on the ground — take a look at the picture to the left of this paragraph. I sent the photo to our daughter at work with no caption.

It was the puppy.

We pieced it together. She had come home from work the prior day and gone straight to the patio, placing her car keys on the table. When she went back in the house without her keys, the pesky puppy must have taken the keys to the corner of the yard as a toy and bit down on the alarm key just as I was pressing the lock button on the fob for my car!

The puppy threw the house up for grabs.

All it took to throw our house into chaos was a puppy playing with a key fob in our backyard. Sometimes life is like that. Everything is calm until an alarm unexpectedly goes off. We could not have seen it coming, had no control over it happening, and did not have an immediate solution when it happened.

Hopeless.

But we never are without hope. God sees us through. If we keep walking closely with Him, He will reveal what we need to know. His plans will always supersede ours.

And His plans are always better.

I want God’s plans for my life, but this means I have to be willing to let Him stop my plans. So when the day goes awry, chaos may occur around us but does not have to occur within us. Whatever it is, God knew the situation beforehand, He understands what is happening in the present (He knew it was the puppy), and He is guiding our future toward the purposes for which we were created.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

The “puppies” of life do need to scare us.

Picture Explanation: 1. Aren’t I cute? 2. No, you aren’t allowed on the furniture! 3. Keys found in the mulch! 4. No mom, I didn’t dig that hole. My face is always this dirty.

Speaking of living a short life that is fully pleasing to God: Our summer online study is underway! If you are interested in participating in an online One Gritty Blink Bible study this fall, click on the Oaks Ministries link below and send me an email so I can place you on a list to be contacted as online and face-to-face studies are planned. Let’s not just focus on things in this short life, but also what counts for eternity.

Note: No part of my posts are derived from A.I. Thoughts and writing stem from my mind and heart as I process life week-by-week and continue to grow in my understanding of God and how to apply His wisdom to the world around me.

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