I'm so glad that God is not like me!

So here's what I do.
I put the "training collars" ie. shock collars on my dogs.
I let them outside.
I sit and watch them out the window with a remote control in my hand and wait for them to try to leave the yard or do something naughty like dig holes in my garden.

Do I have any faith in them to behave themselves...absolutely not.

I sit there, beeper in hand and wait for them to mess up.

As soon as they get too far from the house I beep them. This does not hurt them...unless, they choose to keep going farther, than they will get #2 and it will get their attention.

Our young dog Sam (6 month old German Shepherd) is not too phased by the collar or the beeps. She still young and naive. But our older dog Macy (6 year old lab/Australian Shep mix) is scared to death of just the beep. In fact sometimes she won't even leave the front porch.
(FYI: The beep does not shock them, just warns them.)


Now before you think that we abuse our dogs, please understand....Macy has only experienced the shock one time. However, if she is playing in the yard and Sam gets beeped, she will hear it and run as fast as possible to the front door.

This whole scenario got me thinking about how grateful I am that God is not like me. Can you imagine if He just sat back and waited for us to blow it so He could "shock" us??

What if He had no confidence in our ability to make a good decision...He was sure we would blow it everytime...and He would let us have it whenever we did.

Thankfully, He's not like that! God believes the best about us...He must because this is what He says about love...and He IS love...

1 Cor 13:7
Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever
ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all
circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].
AMP

The truth is, He is crazy about us! He is ever ready to believe the best of us! I've struggled with this in the past. I used to see God as the big fly swatter in the sky, just waiting for me to get out of line so He could swat me. But that is not at all the God that I see on the pages of His Word.

Psalms 36:5
Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to
the skies.
NIV

And in the New Testament:

1 John 3:16
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his
life for us.
NIV

This is how we know what love is...no one could love us more.
Isn't it great that He is not looking for a reason to punish us? He laid down His life for us!
I'm so glad that God isn't like me!

Lord, I pray that you would help us to know and understand how perfect Your love is. Open the eyes of our hearts so we can see who You truly are and how much You love each of us.