Christian Living

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We found a little white dog in Alaska once in an empty house huddled under the furnace. The furnace was no longer actively heating the house, but perhaps the little dog remembered the days when it was heating the house. The pitiful, blackened, bedraggled animal no longer had the benefit of heat in the cold Alaskan winter, but it had the next best thing; the memory of heat. When the warmth of affection slips out of our relationships with God and each other, some of us are like this little dog; we survive on the mere memory of that warmth of affection. We may long for those “good old days” and recount and revel in their faded glory. But this dog can offer us an important clue. It had the sense in the cold to return at least to the last place it remembered the direct experience and enjoyment of the heat. Yes, it returned there in the hope that if it happened there once that it was warm and snug, maybe it would happen there again. What were we ourselves doing differently in the time when we felt that fervent affection? Let us do those things again. (Revelation Chapter 2, v.4,5) Act as love would act, and trust the feelings to follow in due time.
For example, one couple delighted in singing together. They would sit off by themselves on a rock ledge in a garden and while away time in the evening that way. Eventually, in the busyness of their daily lives, they fell out of the habit, almost before it had the chance to become a habit. But they can still return to a garden the way the dog returned to the furnace. But unlike with the dog, there is still spiritual heat in that garden!

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