All Too Human

In my last message I wrote about the antics of our dog Marley given the possibility there was a skunk under our front step. Marley continued to be relentless in her desire to be free to deal with the threat beneath our front deck. I could not take her out without her leash which we use very little in the country. She kept pulling me back to the front steps where she repeatedly deeply inhaled, as well as barked, whined and even cried. She was salivating profusely and leaving a puddle on the deck. She was intent in her objective and that was to deal with whatever was lurking under the deck.

In desperation, I locked her inside the house and decided with some trepidation to flush out the interloper. I could hear Marley crying on the other side of the door. She wanted so badly to rush to the rescue. I pushed a strip of sheet metal between the boards from the inside to the outside and indeed a skunk immerged from beneath the steps. It immediately turned and raised its tail and prepared to spray me. I was horrified and thought to myself something about being very stupid. Nothing happened. The skunk was very small and very young. At that moment, while thanking the Lord, I learned that skunks must obtain some maturity before becoming effective at what they do. I proceeded to scare the poor thing along the side of the house through the garage and into the forest behind the house. I am certain that it was sufficiently traumatized so as to not return to our abode. I then let Marley out. After a few cursory sniffs of the area, she promptly laid down quietly in the sun on the front step.

Marley’s behaviour is sometimes disturbingly human. It occurred to me that she just had to do the wrong thing. Despite what she should have done, she was intent on doing the wrong thing. She just had to stick her snout in that small opening under the steps in order to get full in the face the last thing she needed. If the skunk had been a little older, she and all of our household would have had great regrets about pursuing the objective at hand. She could not be deterred from doing the wrong thing.

The Apostle Paul sums this human failing up in Romans 7:15

15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.

He is saying that he knows what he should do, but all too often he does what he should not do. The Message paraphrases this verse as follows:

“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.”

If the Apostle Paul can admit such shortcoming, we can only commiserate with him. The failing is all too common. At times we just can’t seem to stop ourselves from doing the wrong thing. We are most fortunate to have a very forgiving God and His Son who paid the penalty for all these wrong doings FOREVER. As hard as we try, we keep falling down. As often as we fall down, Jesus picks us up again and again and again.

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