My Favorite Fashion Accessory

As I type this, I am wearing all black.  I am also wearing my favorite fashion accessory...dog hair.

Ellie is our tricolor beagle.  The tip of her tail and her legs are white, her shoulders, face and backside are tan and her back is solid black.  Her hair shows up no matter what color you happen to be wearing.  

Now some people may think of this as a great annoyance, but I prefer to think of it as evidence we are greatly blessed.  

Glen and I often quote this verse from Proverbs 14:4:

"Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox."

If we had no Ellie, there would be no hair.

How does Ellie's hair end up on my clothes?  It gets there as a result of Ellie jumping up onto my lap and resting there.  There are few things I find more relaxing and enjoyable than Ellie being in my lap.  She almost always asks for permission first, and I almost always welcome her to sit with me.  I love that she wants to sit there and that she finds it comfortable enough to relax and take a nap.  I love it when she curls up in my lap, even if it means she sheds her hairs all over me.

It reminds me of a verse in James:

"Draw night to God, and He will draw nigh to you." James 4:8.

The Lord loves when we turn our attention to Him, when we seek out communion with Him and our feeling free and comfortable with Him.  He loves for us to curl up in His lap and shed our hairs all over Him, as it were. But just how do we "draw nigh" to God?

The first way is through prayer.  By simply talking to Him, by taking our wounds and worries, our hurts and hopes to Him. The door is always open and we must only walk right through to commune with Him.

Another way is through the Scriptures He has given us.  Through them we learn of Him, of His will and His way.  We learn what He has done for us, what He is currently doing for us and what He promises to do in the future.

Another way is through fellowship with other believers.  Through their lives and experiences we can learn about God in ways we might not have gone through personally.  Their stories of faith and trust can strengthen us and encourage us in our own walks with the Lord.

As we draw near to God, something wonderful happens to us.  We become more and more like His dear Son.  We are changed, from glory to glory, as the Scriptures say, into the image of Christ.  This is God's ultimate plan, will and way, for us... to be like His Son.

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."  
2 Corinthians 3:18

"For who He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren."  

Romans 8:29

Let us take every advantage of drawing near enough to the Lord that our hair ends up on His robes.