The grace of a dog's love

I've been thinking a lot about grace these last couple of days. Grace is a concept so contrary to our normal understanding of the way the world works that even as Christians who praise God for his grace, we live as if we have to earn our way into God's kingdom.

We live as if we need to keep producing the goods, doing the good deeds, being generous with time and space and finance, in order to earn God's favour. But in fact the Bible says we are saved by grace, not by works. And we move into the spotlight of God's grace when we turn to him, recognising our own helplessness to be 'good', sorry for all the misdemeanours and felonies we have committed with our words and our deeds, and looking to Jesus for salvation.

Then we experience the liberating joy of being swept into the exuberant embrace of God and loved, truly, madly and deeply.

I wonder if one of the reasons that we have the phrase, 'a dog is man's best friend' is because a dog shows his/her owner so much grace. A dog never withholds her love just because you were away a few hours longer than usual.

I remember once, years ago, when I was away for a period of time for family reasons. When I came back after a few weeks, Don met me at the airport and when we drove up to the house, our dog at that time, Magic, saw me in the car. When Don turned off the engine, Magic raced round the car two or three times, maniacly happy, before leaping in across Don's knees to greet me with a wet slobbery kiss on the face.

She forgave my absence in an instant.

I hope it's not irreverent to compare God's grace to the non-judgmental love of a dog. To me, it kind of helps me 'see' it.