Written in the Stars

Last year, I believe it was, at Christmas Eve I showed a picture of me as a kid. This year I want to show you a picture of my dog. This picture may be better looking. This is Addie. Addie is long-haired shepherd, sometimes called a Shiloh shepherd. I think she’s a good looking dog, but she’s has a bit of a troubled past. Don’t tell her I said that. There was the time that my wife went to get pizza for the big birthday party and took Addie with her. She got the pizza, put it in the Jeep, and then made just a quick stop in another store, only to come out and find mozzarella and marinara all over Addie’s mouth. The pizza was GONE, ALL GONE! Addie wasn’t very popular at the birthday party I can tell you.

There was the time she got into the skunk. There was the time she ate the ham. Do you know what ham does to a dog’s intestinal tract? There were the times she attacked the neighbors little dogs. I could go on, but I’ll stop here. No use piling on. Addie can be very exasperating. It’s fitting that Addie was named after a grandmother in our family who, God rest her soul, was an exasperating woman.

But there’s another side to Addie as well. And see if this doesn’t capture something that you see in your dog as well:

Show God and Dog clip.



God thought and made up the dog. Dog reflects a part of God. My dog has never criticized one of my sermons. My dog has never given me a disapproving look. She loves going on walks with me. She thinks I’m great. Dog reflects a part of God.
God’s desire to have a relationship with us. God would stay with me all day. I’m the one who walks away.

There is an old expression that compares something to “a dog in a manger.” The expression refers to an old Aesop fable in which a dog plants himself in a manger so none of the other animals can eat the hay there. Even though the dog can’t use it, he doesn’t want the other animals to have it either. A dog in a manger is useless and spiteful to others. It’s a mean-spirited spoilsport. And I wonder if this how many people look at the God in the manger – useless to them and a spoilsport to the world. Is this how God is?

God’s story of Christmas is found in Luke 2.and the setting of the story is really the world’s stage. . .”in those days a decree went out from Caesar, the ruler of the civilized world.”

But even that setting is not big enough for what God has in mind because a few verses later we are told some shepherds are in the fields and angels and hosts speak out of the night sky and stars to declare what God has in mind.

God chooses a people to teach his ways and to whom he will make Himself known. God gets specific. He calls these people to come out and be different. Through all their struggles and failures he preserves a faithful few, a remnant to carry on, and through the centuries the remnant seems to get smaller and smaller until you have to search really hard. You have to look in a backwater region of the Empire, a crude country called Palestine, to an even lesser known town there called Nazareth. In Nazareth is a girl who is engaged to be married to a simple carpenter. That girl is named Mary. Though she doesn’t know it, she is the faithful remnant of God’s people. She is the conduit for God’s plan of salvation that funnels through her and bursts into the world in the form of a baby boy who will become salvation for all peoples. Jesus is God getting specific and God getting big at the same time.

God isn’t content to be an idea or even to be a god of some folks of a certain religious persuasion. God’s heart is pining for everyone. He wants to have a relationship with everyone.

Dallas Willard says that God wants to “form us to be persons He can set loose in the Universe.” Truly God wants us to be stewards and rulers of the whole Creation.


Some people have trouble believing that their lives have a cosmic purpose. Others have trouble identifying what that purpose is, what their lives are really about.

In the fifth of the Harry Potter books, a young Lord Voldermort is just coming to the height of his evil powers. He goes back to his alma mater, Hogwarts, to speak to Headmaster Dumbledore about a teaching position. Dumbledore knows that his former pupil, Tom Riddle, now known as Lord Voldemort, has become a truly evil being. Yet, Dumbledore agrees to see him and hear his application to teach.

“I think you must know that I have seen and done much since I left this place. I could show and tell your students things they can gain from no other wizard.” Voldemort states.

Dumbledore responds, “Rumors of your doings have reached your old school, Tom. I should be sorry to believe half of them.” Voldemort continues:

“I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed –“

“Of some kinds of magic,” Dumbledore corrected him quietly. “Of some. Of others, you remain. . .forgive me. . .woefully ignorant.” For the first time, Voldemort smiled. It was a taut leer, an evil thing, more threatening than a look of rage.

“The old argument,” Voldemort said softly. “But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore.”

“Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places,” suggested Dumbledore.

Perhaps you have been looking for meaning and purpose in the wrong places.
Love is the reason. Love is the purpose. Maybe that’s not the freshest idea you’ve ever heard. Maybe it’s an old argument. But to say its old does not mean untrue.

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3.16

I had a conversation with a stranger after a wedding a few weeks ago. . .` I went into a restroom at the reception and this man came in after me. “Pastor! That was great speech you gave. That was a really good talk. . . “ He went on and the enthusiasm with which he praise me made me believe that he had had too much to drink. I mean, my sermon was good. But it wasn’t that good.

He continued, “Me and the big guy upstairs, we haven’t been too close. . .” and then his voice trailed as he mumbled something about “getting reconnected.”

Now, anytime I hear someone mention “the big guy upstairs” I know that they probably don’t know God that well. There in front of the bathroom stalls I expressed my hope that he would get “reconnected” with God.

Where are you in this Universe today? Because I believe that question is not so much “Where is God?” but where are you? Are you disconnected? Are you walking around in a haze where the best belief you can muster is expressed with the words “the big guy upstairs”?

That weak belief is not going to get you very far, in this life, or the next. There is an alternative within your grasp – you can know the Almighty Creator of the Universe. You can know Him as your Savior, your Lord, and your Friend. He’s written it in a book. He’s written it in the stars. He’s written it on my heart and on the hearts of many. It can be written on your heart too.

“Simple spelling G O D. Same word backwards D O G. They would stay with me all day. I’m the one who walks away.

“But both just wait for me. And dance at my return with glee. Both love me no matter what – divine God, canine mutt.