It’s Great to Be a Dog

A speaker I heard once made a distinction between "dog" Christians and
"cat" Christians. Dogs look at their owners and say, "You feed me,
you care for me, you love me . . . you must be God!" Cats, of course,
look at their owners and say, "You feed me, you care for me, you love
me . . . I must be God!"

It's a funny distinction but an important one when it comes to the
Christian faith. For I fear that too many people who pass for
Christians these days are really "cats" and not "dogs." And I believe
the Bible is quite clear – dangerously clear – that God seeks "dog"
Christians and in the end will have nothing to do with "cat"
Christians.

But who are all these "cat" Christians? Well, first you have people
who consider themselves Christian by association: "I'm Christian
because my family is, or because my nation is, or because I went to
church when I was a kid." Somewhat related are those who think being
Christian is solely about our actions and habits: "I'm Christian
because I go to church and try to be a good person." You can be a
theology Christian: "My faith is about knowing the Bible inside and
out." Or an issues Christian: "My faith is about seeking justice, or
serving the poor, or saving the environment." You can be a
church-first Christian: "The most important thing in life is to serve
the church." Or even a missions-minded Christian: "The most important
thing in life is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ spread to more
people and more places."

But you can easily do all of these from a "cat"-centric perspective
and not a "dog"-centric one. That is, you can do and think and say
all the right things, but still have your faith have you in the center
instead of God. Let me put it this way: where do you start when you
start to pray? Is it with personal requests? "Lord, help me with my
studies." Is it with intercessions for others? "Lord, heal my
uncle." Is it with help for ministry? "Lord, bless the Bible study
I'm leading tonight." All good requests, all things God wants us to
pray, and yet easily prayed from a human-centric and not God-centric
perspective.

Or take reading the Bible. Is it to pick out individual verses that
speak to a struggle you're struggling with, or to understand the full
story of what God's like and what He's about? It's great that we turn
to the Scriptures for comfort when we need comfort and for peace when
we are anxious, but it's incorrect to relegate the Bible to the same
status as the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series.

For prayer and Scripture study, and the Christian life in general,
isn't about us tapping into the Almighty to help us live our lives
better for us, but about us tapping into the Almighty to help us live
our lives better for Him. This is what it means to follow Jesus and
to accept His way of salvation: not that we check a box and now have
access to a magical genie, but that we die to being boss of our lives
and live for a new boss. This is an extremely unpopular invitation in
any culture, not just a modern or Western one, because the biggest
obstacle to God being God in our lives is us wanting to stay being God
in our lives. We all want to be cats, not dogs.

I am impaired in telling you how great it is to be a "dog" Christian,
for two reasons. One is that I seldom act like a "dog" Christian, and
all too often don't act like any kind of Christian. Two is that if I
emphasized how great it was, it would be tempting to view that
greatness with "cat" eyes. Take the whole "Prayer of Jabez" fad that
hit a few years ago. Bruce Wilkinson is a deeply profound and wise
person, and I think he speaks truth in his bestselling book. But a
lot of "cat" Christians read that book with "cat" eyes and kept on
being "cats." Read it again, with "dog" eyes, and you'll see how much
more you'll get out of it.

Nevertheless, let me say that it's great to be a "dog," and I strive
to be a better one each day. While our natural selves fight to stay
God in our lives, deep inside there is another aspect of us that longs
to live for something and Someone greater.

The next time you go to a Starbucks, you might find the following
quote from Rick Warren on your cup: "You are not an accident. Your
parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive
and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal
your real purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you
understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we
discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our
significance and our destiny."

What if we all got this? If we exchanged our agendas for God's? Not
only would we make great impacts in this world and have terrifically
fulfilling lives, but God would be glorified to the nth. And that's,
ultimately, all this dog wants.