God is Working Behind the Scenes

This morning, the Lord helped me make a connection between me helping my dog and how He is working behind the scenes in my life to help me.

Our dog has quite sensitive skin and gets hot spots during the summer. Last summer, we were able to keep them under control but this summer they have been unbearable. To make things even more difficult, the mosquitoes have been horrible this summer. Between the sore paws and numerous mosquito bites, our poor dog has been miserable! 

We fought a losing battle all summer to keep him from licking his paws and stop scratching or biting his fur. His medicine has finally started working but he now has bare patches of fur all over his body. He is now so accustomed to licking that he just can’t seem to stop. I had no other choice but to buy him the proverbial “cone of shame.”

I put the cone on him this morning. The look on his face said it all. At first it was shock, which turned to dismay, and finally settled on dejection. I lovingly petted him, looked him straight in the face and said, “I’m doing this to help you.” The look in his eyes conveyed, “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” And that’s the moment I connected with what God is doing behind the scenes in my life right now—and I suspect many others.

The Lord has been asking me recently to let go of control in certain areas of my life to give Him access to do things His way. If I’m completely honest, His way makes no sense and scares me. To compound things, He is asking me to step out in complete faith in an area of my life where I failed miserably—and very publicly—several years ago.

As I looked at the hurt expression in my dog’s eyes, I realized that I was doing the same thing to God. Ever so gently, I could feel Him saying to me, “You don’t understood what I’m doing. I’m trying to help you.”

In my hurt, I didn’t understand that God is trying to set me free in certain areas where I was wounded. He is asking me to trust Him instead of the outward appearance of things. He needs to set me free in these areas in order to be able to carry out the things He has for me to do in the future. As I am able to rest in this knowledge, I find peace and excitement in letting go and making room for the new.

Are there areas in your life where God is putting His finger on things you’d rather have left alone? Is He asking you to step out in faith and trust in Him? What if God is asking you to get out of His way because He working out incredible things for you behind the scenes?