I am sharing a thought which I wrote last October:

Help me!

Our dog, Lady, likes to be turned outside to romp around our farmstead. She rolls in the grass; checks out the neighbor’s dogs; passes through my flowerbeds; and enjoys the world around her. We let her go. Eventually, she will be done and want to come back into our house.

First thing I know, there is a scratch, scratch, scratch at our dining room door….and then silence.

I get up from my chair or leave what I doing, to let Lady in. When I look through the door glass, I see a dog sitting on our step patiently waiting. I open the door, and she runs through. She begins a ritual of running around the house – happy to be back inside.

As I watched her several day ago, I compared her to us asking God for help by praying. There is no way that Lady can get into the house on her own. She has no hands. If she did, the door knob is way too high for her to reach. She can’t get in without someone else’s help.

We are like that. The world deals us problems and troubles that we have no way of handling. We don’t have the hands to open the door for a solution! And if we did, the door knob is out of our reach. But we know Someone who will let us in with answers and solutions.

Lady waits patiently because she knows that inside of the house are some people who love her and will take care of her. She has scratched on the door and we have let her in every time before. That is faith.

When we pray, we can trust God to answer us because we have trusted Him before and this time is no different. We have to "scratch and wait patiently for our answer".

Sometimes I don’t hear Lady’s first "scratch" or I am preoccupied doing something else. Lady never barks, complains, or loses her patience. A few more minutes will pass….and she scratches again. This time she gets my attention and help.

We, too, sometimes re-ask God for help with a situation. Like Lady, we know God loves us and will take care of us. We know what is inside "His House": His love and care. We have to scratch and wait for the door to open. We want to be inside where all that attention and help is.

And God always lets us in. Because that is what love and relationships as His Children are like.