Guilty As Charged

They say people who sleep with their pets consistently speak of a lack of rest. Guilty as charged. Pete and Dapple sleep with us (me, really). I like to say that it's for survival; that we sleep together for warmth because Kara keeps the house so cold! In reality though, every pet I've had that could fit in the bed with me slept with me. Even when I was little our dogs would sneak down the hall to my room late at night. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was the late night snacking night owl of my family, but I like to think it was because they liked me.

Either way, 34 years later our pets sleep with me. If you asked, I'd tell you that more nights than not they disturb my sleep. Pushing me with their paws, crawling on me to find a cooler spot, sticking their cold noses on me for warmth, scratching, flapping their ears, the list is endless. Every night about 3am one of them wakes me up by licking me or flapping their ears so I'll take them outside to use the restroom.

Maybe it's because of my early experiences, but I'm a weather watcher. Night after night, I watch the clouds, the stars, the wind. I feel the humidity, sense the wind, check the moon's phase, all the little things like that. I enjoy watching the stars move, the moon cycle, and the skies change through the seasons. I enjoy the cold snap of winter, the slight muggy warmth of spring, the heat of summer, and the cool hint of fall. But it's the cold clear nights that impress me. The stars seem so clear, so perfect hanging in the dark blue night sky.

But appearances are deceptive. The stars may look perfect, but they aren't. Not when they're compared to God. If the stars that seem so cold, so perfect, are flawed in God's eyes, what hope do we have? As we look to space, we are forced to feel our smallness, our finiteness that can't save us.

Bildad the Shuhite again attacked Job: "God is sovereign, God is fearsome— everything in the cosmos fits and works in his plan. Can anyone count his angel armies? Is there any place where his light doesn't shine? How can a mere mortal presume to stand up to God? How can an ordinary person pretend to be guiltless? Why, even the moon has its flaws, even the stars aren't perfect in God's eyes, So how much less, plain men and women— slugs and maggots by comparison!" (Job 25:1-6 MSG)