Adrift

This week I will be using devotions that were published in my book The Pond in 2016. Today's devotion features our German Shepherd, Silas who has been gone now since 2019. I feel sure he is waiting for us in heaven with plenty of tennis balls!

Once I got home from work today, I changed my shoes and headed out to Silas’ pen to check on him and his water supply since we’ve had almost two weeks of 95 degree + heat. Silas is our German shepherd and he is 85 pounds of pure love! He is most certainly attached to his “Dad” but when Dad’s not home he’s sort of my dog. Don’t get me wrong, he loves me too, it’s just that my husband has spent more one on one time with him over the past 9 years and they are very close.

Silas loves to wade out in the pond till his belly gets wet, but that’s as far as he’s going….at least for now. He also loves playing ball. We throw his tennis ball and he chases it so hard, grabs it, and then takes off back towards us. Just when you think he’s going to drop that ball at your feet, he zings right on by! Sometimes, like this afternoon, he dodges me altogether and runs down to the water’s edge dropping his ball in the pond. Most often, the ball is close enough he doesn’t mind retrieving it to play again. Today, however; was a different story and that tennis ball right now as I sit writing this has floated almost out to the center of the pond. It looks lost and abandoned, floating aimlessly on the water.

Have you ever felt that you were like this tennis ball? Floating aimlessly, just bobbing about in life without plan or direction? Did you know that our heavenly Father has a plan for each of us? He tells us so in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” In Psalm 139, we see that God knit us together in our mother’s womb – He has known us since before we were conceived. But what joy remains to be when we read in John’s gospel:” I am the good shepherd, and know my [sheep], and am known of mine.” John 10:14-15.

So, during the times you feel afloat and lost, remember He who created the earth and everything in it, has a plan for your life. Search His Word and pray for His direction in your life. “He who has begun a good work will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6.