Poop Matters - Day 250 Month 9-7 Week 34-5
Today's Reading (Bible in 1 year)
2 Kings 4, Proverbs 28:15-28, Ezekiel 43:18-44:14, 2 Corinthians 13
Poop Matters
God cares about the small things. We have just read several stories of Elisha. You’ll recall that Elisha asked Elijah for a double portion of his spirit. The stories we are hearing of Elisha certainly paint a picture of this being fact. God was using Elisha to accomplish some big miracles.
The last few days, our dog Jake has been a little under the weather. Now, Jake is already a sickly dog, but this was a little different. If you are a dog parent, you will understand this. If not, maybe you can imagine it but I do apologize for the blunt descriptives of the story. First, a little background. A smart adult dog typically has the brain capacity of a two year old child. They can understand some of the things we say and respond to commands they have been taught, but they can't actually tell us what is wrong. Apart from the usual barks, grunts, moans and the occasional burp, communication is pretty limited. We can often tell a dog's health by what comes out the other end. Just like us humans, their regular need to pee and poop can tell us a lot about how they are doing.
A few days ago, I took Jake for his morning walk. We had walked maybe 200 feet when he pooped and it was a large quantity of diarrhea. That is never a good sign. We are very careful with Jake because he is sickly. We always have him on a leash and watch him, like hawks, what he sniffs, to make sure he doesn't eat anything off the ground. We go to great lengths to keep him healthy. The diarrhea was unexpected, but he had just come off medication for IBS a few days earlier. My immediate thought was, “Oh, here comes another vet visit.”
We watched him for the next half day. We took him for his normal lunch and dinner walks, but he didn't poop at all. Now we were becoming concerned that something more serious might be wrong. I mean, if you have a bowel problem that starts with diarrhea, you would normally expect another trip to the bathroom. But nothing. We went through the rest of the day and Jake didn't have another bowel movement.
The next day was his usual daycare day, and we weren't sure whether we should take him. We decided to wait and see what happened on his morning walk. I took him for a longer walk than normal. He was moving a little slower than usual and he peed several times, but we were getting close to the end of our walk. So I prayed. I said, “Lord, please make him poop. You know we don't have the money for so many vet visits, and we also don't know whether to take him to daycare.”
I was pretty desperate for an answer. Immediately, Jake crouched down, as dogs do, and produced a perfect, non-diarrhea poop.
You might say this is a coincidence but I don’t believe so. As much as God cares about the big things that we read about in the stories of both Elijah and Elisha, I believe he cares about the small things. I have plenty of experiences asking God for the small things and receiving answers. I believe an “all knowing” God knows when we need an answer. Through this experience I was reminded that communication is important and I believe He just wanted to hear my plea.
In the end, Jake did get to go to daycare and see his friends. Sylvia and I were able to accomplish an unusually busy schedule. It was clear Jake was simply under the weather and apart from being a little slower these days, he is normal.
Have a great day!
Steve
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