In A Dog's Age

Number 47 on the list of things I admire about dogs--and it’s a lengthy list mind you--they have no qualms with Father Time. You will never hear a dog moan over their bursitis or belly ache about their bunions. They won’t bemoan the way they used to be able to lift a couch up over their heads while they struggle to open a jar of mayo -- light of course, they’re watching their cholesterol. They just don’t seem to give two hoots about growing old. After all, a dog’s average life span is 12.8 years, why waste even .8 of it complaining when you could be sniffing the ground under the kitchen table for a stray Cheerio? God has blessed dogs with an ignorance of age. They seize each new day given to them without concern of failing strengths or gravity’s cruel joke on their appearance.

When I first met Dana, my former neighbor’s aging Golden, I was not prepared for what the hands of time had done to her face. I was told she had some fatty tumors but as Dana rounded the corner and ambled forward to meet me, a long, gray drooping tumor swayed back and forth like a giant fleshy pendulum from the side of her face. If she was embarrassed by my look of shock and horror, she didn’t show it. She simply continued forward with her head held high and gently licked my hand before retiring to a sunny corner to resume her afternoon nap. My neighbor seemed more embarrassed about it than Dana did. She quickly assured me that it was painless and more life- threatening to put Dana under for surgery to remove it than to simply leave it hang. So hang it did and Dana was fine with that. It’s just one of those things that happens with time and her peace with it made me ashamed of my constant struggle to hide a barely perceptible age spot. There’s no vanity in the dog world. They are blissfully unaware of the droopy lids and sagging neckline. Dogs don’t go running for the Grecian Formula in order to cover the graying that gradually appears around their mouthes. In Proverbs 16:31, it reads, “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life” We are called to embrace our graying tresses. The Bible calls it a “crown” and who wouldn’t want to wear a crown? But the world tells us otherwise. Perhaps that’s why dogs don’t care, they don’t have to stand in line at the grocery store and tolerate the seductive stares of the beautiful people from the covers of Cosmo and Glamour. They are immune to the constant calls to stay young and fit from countless infomercials. But I have no doubt they enjoy the runs and walks we take them on as we desperately try to do just that. They gladly run beside us as we try to out run the clock and they do it with their gray hair flowing as we tuck ours under a baseball cap until our next salon appointment.

It’s not only a dog’s ambivalence toward the superficial physical changes that happen as they age that impress me but their mental attitude towards it as well. Dogs perpetually think they’re two. At a bounce of a ball or the sound of an opening chip bag, my dog Deion who is the human equivalent age of 56, will spring from his bed and run to where the action is. It’s a conditioned response that refuses to fade with time. Granted, that spring is a little less sure and quick as it used to be but the point is, he is always up for a change in the game plan. His energy is always enthusiastically pursuing those things that bring him joy. Age is not an impediment. Ecclesiastes 8:15 tells us, “And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.” There is joy to be had at any age, just watch your dog as he goes through his days under the sun and you would swear the water that fills his bowl is from the fountain of youth.

Dogs are living, breathing examples of the fact that God calls us to embrace our lives and His calling for it -- even as we age. It’s easy to look ahead with the bright optimism of a young and healthy twenty-year old and feel that we can do anything to which God calls us. However, it seems we heed less and less God’s calling as we age. Perhaps we think we aren’t physically capable of accomplishing much but what we have in later years is experience and the wisdom of age. “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days” (Job 12:12) Qualities our world today values less and less but in God’s eyes, it’s a treasured gift and is of immeasurable value. Proverbs 16:16 reminds us, “How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.”

Look to the Old Testament patriarchs. Noah was six hundred years old at the time of the flood. God did not call a young man to build the ark, after all, Noah had sons that could just have easily been commanded to construct the biggest boat of all time but he called Noah. Noah had wisdom and righteousness. He had the integrity to stand up against the tirade of nay sayers and scoffers that surrounded him daily. He wasn’t worried about how he appeared to the world as a younger man might, his only concern was being obedient to God. Abraham was ninety-nine years old and childless when God told him that he would be the father to a multitude of nations. Even Abraham’s wife Sarah had to laugh when she overheard that she would become a new mother while in her nineties but was quickly silenced when the angel told her, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14). Genesis 21 goes on to read, “Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.” (21:1) Age is not a barrier if God calls you to a particular task for he will give you all that you need to fulfill it. Strength, endurance, energy and time; God will provide the provision. How else could a man as old as Moses was survive the plagues of Egypt and a 40 year trek in the desert?

God grants each and every one of our days according to his perfect purpose and will. Whether we are 9 or 90, God can and will use us if we trust and obey. Don’t ever believe you are too old to leap off the couch if God bounces the ball.