My beloved Buddy is wearing his Christmas holiday bowtie and collar. He wasn’t too happy about it and is looking rather miffed. Yet, he is naturally a very sweet dog and makes good company. If someone were to judge him solely by this photo, they would get a very wrong impression of Buddy’s personality.
During the Thanksgiving holiday season I watched one of my favorite movies, “Pride & Prejudice,” with the lovely Kiera Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. I particularly enjoy Donald Sutherland’s version of Mr. Bennet.
As many who love the story know, the hero, Mr. Darcy, makes an error in judging the character of Jane Bennet, Elizabeth’s sister. Because Jane is so shy, she doesn’t make her interest in Mr. Darcy’s friend clear as to whether she loves him as a man or just a friend. So Mr. Darcy separates his friend from Jane to protect his feelings.
Elizabeth is quite angry that her sister’s heart was broken. She considers Mr. Darcy cold and snobbish. Mr. Darcy proves his love to Elizabeth by rescuing the Bennet family from a foolish choice by one of her sisters that could ruin the family’s reputation and standing in the community. Elizabeth learns, through Mr. Darcy’s actions, that he is actually a good man and is also rather shy in revealing his true feelings and nature to those he doesn’t know well. And falls in love with him.
Only because Mr. Darcy is willing to risk being rejected a second time by proposing again to Elizabeth (after she rejected him for being a snob for his poorly worded first proposal), does Elizabeth find great happiness in marriage.
When contemplating how the author, Jane Austen, put the plot and characters together, I realized that Mr. Darcy is a sort of Christ figure. Despite his rejection by Elizabeth, he continued to do good for her family, with a great financial gift to rescue her sister from ruin, to prove his love for her. Love motivated him to continue to pursue Elizabeth and risk rejection.
“Where are you?”–Genesis 3:9
When I finally realized the true meaning of God calling out for Adam and Eve in the Garden, it broke my heart.
God is also misunderstood and rejected by billions of his beloved humanity. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve didn’t trust God’s love for them and listened to Satan instead, thinking God was holding out on them so they disobeyed. They didn’t believe that God truly loved them.
When God called out, “Where are you?”, He knew where Adam and Eve were physically. But they became spiritually separated from Him. At one time, they were in perfect union and fellowship with God. Sin/disobedience separated them spiritually so that they no longer felt His great love for them in their spirits. Their spirits died.
We were created to be triune beings, like God: soul, body and spirt. When the human race rejected fellowship with God, the Holy Spirit left the human race. As a result, each one of us is born missing the Life of God within us. We are all born with a God-shaped hole within our being.
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”–Jesus, John 10:10
Every human being feels that emptiness inside. They try to fill it with things that can never fill it: food, sex, entertainment, parties, alcohol, travel, drugs, shopping, etc. We can never get enough of what we’re trying to fill that emptiness with. These attempts to fill the hole never work because we were created to be filled with the Life of Christ.
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing;”–John 6:63
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), …so that in the ages to come He might show the surprising riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”–Ephesians 2:4-7
Because we don’t trust that God is good, we don’t come to Him. Yet, He continues to pursue each one of us because of His great love for us. He wants to give us, not only eternal life with Him, but His life by giving us the Holy Spirit, making us whole once again. This is what the term “born again” means: the Holy Spirit coming to live within you when you repent of your sin, admitting that you need God to be in charge of your life, accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Your spirit is united with the Spirit of Christ and you become spiritually alive.
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and confess in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”–Romans 10:9
Lord, meaning, “Immanuel, God with us.”–Matthew 1:23
Christmas is about God pursuing us, sending His son to live among us so that we can understand and believe that He is good and that He truly loves us.
“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; …And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”–Isaiah 9:6
Merry Christmas from Dawn and Buddy
God bless you. Thank you for reading my Buddy blog.
Meditations About God and Buddy 