With dogs, so I’ve been reading, when you introduce a new dog there has to be a new pecking order sorted, a new claiming of who is top dog. With Renly being 11 years older than Willow, and being the more easy-going, I’ve had to work on making sure he is top dog and she doesn’t bully him. So he gets treats first, gets to choose his place on the couch, etc. I prioritise him over her. Also to get her to behave I have to be top dog so she does as I tell her, and so she feels safe and secure.
That isn’t how it works with God. God doesn’t prioritise any of us. God doesn’t have any of us as “top dog”, care for more than anyone else, have anyone more special than someone else. [Though if we stick with the dog analogy then to feel safe and secure we need to know that God is top dog!]
That isn’t to say we shouldn’t treat people with care and respect – but then I think that might come back to the “if you fully love yourself then you can love your neighbour fully”.
Many of us, especially in childhood, were not prioritised, or it felt like we weren’t prioritised. It could be due to a demanding younger sibling, a major trauma that happens in the family where the parents fold in on themselves and forget about their children, not from abuse but from survival. But even if we can rationalise out the whys we have still be hurts, still felt unloved and unsafe, still felt unprioritised. We were living with an often unseen wound that needs healing; a wound that would appear as a temper tantrum or a shutting down or a sulking or a walking away from a relationship or an addiction.
Though of course with all wounds we need to identify it first.
I think though many of us, because we haven’t acknowledge and subsequently haven’t been healed of this wound of being scared because we felt we were pushed to one side, we don’t believe God will care for us. Rationally there are loads of people so much more deserving we can tell ourselves. Why would God care about my life, my problems, my job, how I’m going to pick up my shopping, etc? We have learned that we don’t come first, that others do and should, but also we feel unsafe when we feel we aren’t prioritised.
But God does care. God doesn’t have “top dogs”, doesn’t have those they care about more than others, those who take priority.
Yes there are people who seem to have more and those who seem to have less and I don’t understand why, but I do know it isn’t because God cares more for one than the other, or thinks some people are better than others. It is a question I plan on taking up when I get to heaven as God and I sit chatting on the side of the River of Life, but till now I’ll keep it as a mystery.
Each and everyone of us comes first with God, which is dead hard to get your head around. I believe this because I have seen my wound, have been healed of it and now can fully accept that God loves and cares for me as much as they do anyone all at the same time. The mystery of faith!
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