A few weeks ago our dog Trooper got loose from our yard.  My fault—I had let him out on a leash for a while, and forgotten to get him.  When I remembered, he was gone.

“Trooper!”, I called and checked, to no avail.  Then I ran behind our tree-lined fence, figuring he’d escaped over it. 

“TROOO-per!”  “TROOOOO…” –- WHAM—he slammed into and jumped on me, all excited and glad to see me.

My good shirt got full of mud-stains, but neither of us cared.  The lost had been found.  Our dog was much more valuable than that shirt.

Only one problem—where was Trooper’s leash and collar?

I had to get him to follow me home, on his own free will.  That’s where treats come in.  Incentive.  I held out a treat and he gladly accompanied me all the way inside, where we shared snuggles.

Now there were two wet, muddy, beings—canine and human.  The human (me) cleaned and fed the canine, then took care of myself.  Then searched, unsuccessfully, for Trooper’s leash and collar.  

Later, my husband Tom helped search– going around, getting permission to search neighbors’ yards, starting with our own.  We didn’t find either leash or collar, so we rigged up temporary ones.

The next morning Tom found both—in a place we missed—coming back from his walk with Trooper.

But the real blessing was what else he found—the way Trooper was escaping our yard! Between the gate and a thick bush just behind our house was a GAP— narrow, yet large enough for a determined 60lb. retriever puppy to wiggle his way through–

–leaving behind the evidence (leash and collar).

The result?  Scratches, bleeding, dirtiness, and hunger—which Trooper decided to exchange for his loving human and home.

The imperfect-loving human learned some things about our perfect-loving God from all this:

  • “Freedom” isn’t all it’s advertised to be—sometimes it’s just the Enemy coaxing us out of a loving environment and relationships, where our needs are met, to a wilderness existence of pain, “dirt”, and hunger. (John 10:10)
  • Real freedom comes through boundaries—the kind that allow us to “run”, explore freely, and enjoy our surroundings—like Trooper can do again, without being chained/leashed, now that we closed the gap. (Josh. 1:8)
  • Therefore, we need to guard against gaps in our lives:

–between knowing and doing what’s right

–between saying and doing what’s right

–between right action and right motives

–between head-knowledge of truth and gut-level feeling and belief

These gaps leave us unprotected from giving in to temptation. (Song of Sol. 2:15)

  • God can and will make blessings out of our botch-ups—we just have to ask and trust Him! He, unlike many human authority-figures, doesn’t say—“You blew it, you fix it.”, or “Your loss and pain are your fault. That’s what you get for…”

–In fact, He receives us with delight, unconditionally, the second we turn/return to Him, the same as I did with Trooper!

That lesson is HUGE for me!  The rest, while great, is also logical.

But the concept of someone in authority not only not condemning but actually helping us when we mess up? 

Add to that using that exact failure to provide the blessing and solution we need!  The Lord “works all things for our good” (Rom. 8:28)

If I hadn’t been negligent and left Trooper out there for 20 min. with his leash only tucked lightly under a chair leg, we would not have discovered how he was getting out!…

…which means we’d still have to keep restricting him and he’d have less freedom.

I’m not encouraging negligence or sin by this!  (Rom. 6:1-2).  But I am encouraging us to recognize, receive, and rejoice in God’s grace toward us—the kind that puts his good into our bad, and goes beyond neutralizing to creating blessing out of it!

Where are you experiencing botch-ups turned into blessings?