When our dog Katie died unexpectedly a few weeks ago while we were on vacation, we experienced a lot of sadness. Coming home, we entered a house without Katie to greet us and mourned her absence. But since Katie was almost 17 years of age—which is old for a dog—we’d known she couldn’t live forever and we’d already witnessed signs of aging. So when she passed on peacefully in her sleep, we were thankful she‘d never had to suffer. We were prepared.
But for someone else there was no preparation . . . no explanation . . . no understanding of why his friend of 10 long years was suddenly gone.
Our other dog Clyde.
Clyde and Katie had been what I called “partners in crime.” They had a relationship that spurred one another on to adventure whenever they managed to get out on their own. Clyde was the mischievous, energetic one, but Katie was the quiet explorer who nosed out new escapades and dared to explore new smells, leading them into uncharted territory—but only if she had Clyde’s spirited vigor at her side, prodding her on. Neither would go alone; only together. They’d return, of course, often covered with mud, but always looking happy at having encountered a new adventure, while meekly enduring their inevitable scolding with sheepish resignation. They were quite a pair.
So when we returned home from vacation with Clyde, he immediately began going from room to room, tail wagging, searching through the house.
Looking.
But the house was empty with no friend to greet him. For the next few days, he lingered expectantly by the door each time one of us went out, waiting for our return. During the day he moped around, head and tail down, looking dejected and gloomy. At night he slept by the front door. He didn’t eat, his usual vitality and sparkle gone.
There was no way we could explain to him what had happened, why his friend was gone. He didn’t understand, and without his having the words, the vocabulary, and the grasp of concepts beyond his comprehension, we couldn’t help him make sense of Katie’s absence. So we just loved on him as much as we could, gave him more attention, took him to the dog park, and got him together with other dog friends, hoping that he would eventually recover from his loss and recapture his previous vivaciousness. We didn’t know if he would actually forget, but hopefully, time would heal.
As I watched Clyde suffer and felt my own helplessness to make things better for him, my thoughts drifted, and I thought about us as humans and our own limited understanding.
Maybe sometimes we’re like Clyde.
When our world collapses around us and things don’t make sense, perhaps it’s simply because our own understanding is so very imperfect. We flounder around trying to figure out why we face the circumstances we do, but to no avail.
But there is Another whose mind is higher than ours, whose understanding no one can fathom. He sees it all clearly and knows us and our circumstances fully.
Even though His thoughts and ways are far beyond our understanding, He has tried to communicate with us and help us understand through His Word. But still our minds cannot fully comprehend His purposes. “Now I know in part;” says Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
God has a perspective that is higher than ours. What is a mystery to me is all too clear to Him. At such times, we need to nestle close to God, sit at His feet, and trust Him so He can love us and guide us through our confusion.
Then, like Clyde, we can eventually heal and rediscover a brand new enthusiasm for life.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9
