I’ve had the privilege of looking after my friend’s dog this week while she and her husband were on holiday. I used to be terrified of dogs, but I’ve known Pepper since she was a puppy and over the years we’ve built a strong bond of love and trust. I’m still not keen on dogs in general, but I most definitely love this one.
Like many dogs, she loves to chew things and one day we were playing in the garden and she started chewing a plastic clothes peg. I panicked and started envisioning an emergency trip to the vet and the phone call that I’d have to make to Jo to tell her that he dog has choked on my watch. I tried to tempt her to give up the peg by offering her a nice juicy bone in its place, but she still didn’t want to let go of it. In the end, I and another friend had to pull the (by now very broken) peg out of her mouth.
It was a very visual illustration of how we’re often so unwilling to give up things that aren’t good for us even when we’re offered something so much better. Pepper couldn’t accept the bone I was offering without surrendering the peg. The option of both wasn’t available. In the same way, if we’re clutching onto our idols – the pathetic Jesus-substitutes we’re holding on to – our hands aren’t open to receive what God wants to give us. We need to let go of the fake substitutes in order to receive something much better from God.
I know that I’m often very reluctant to stop chewing on the trash of the world even when God is offering me all his goodness. Our idols are fake and plastic and yet we somehow think we’re going to lose something important if we let go of them. When I saw Pepper chewing the clothes peg when she could have been gnawing a bone, it made me realise how ridiculous we are not to surrender our idols when something infinitely better is available to us.
So, what are the plastic clothes pegs in your life? What are you looking to for value, satisfaction, security and meaning instead of looking to Jesus? Maybe it’s family or work. Maybe it’s escaping into video games or alcohol. Or maybe it’s the need for approval from others? I know that for me, I’m often tempted to cling onto achievement to make me feel good about myself. I want an impressive CV and a list of accomplishments to feel worthy. But in reality that will never be enough. There will always be things I haven’t achieved and there will always be people who have achieved more. The only way to feel real peace and contentment is to rest in my identity in Christ, which is unchangeable and eternally secure. He says that I’m his precious daughter, fully known and deeply loved for all eternity. I think that’s a juicy bone worth dropping the plastic peg for.
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