So I was standing there trying to have a serious talk with my wife when suddenly she burst out laughing for no reason.

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

“You should see yourself. You look like Jesus holding a little lamb.”

I went to a mirror, and sure enough, there I was, except I wasn’t holding a little lamb, I was holding Blitzen, our Chihuahua. And the reason I was holding Blitzen is actually significant to the analogy.

Poor Blitzen has developed a serious phobia over certain areas of our house and yard that he can’t seem to cross for some unknown reason. Whether it’s a slippery floor or a couple of steps that seem daunting, he will simply stand at the foot of whatever impasse he faces and bark until someone comes and gets him and carries him over where he wants to go.

But it’s the bark that drives you nuts. It would be one thing if he just kept on barking and barking, but it’s a single little bark repeated randomly every few seconds, and just when you think he’s given up… “Arf!” there he goes again. It’s like a form of Chinese water torture that makes you want to strangle him. And that’s why I had Blitzen in my arms. I had left my office next to our garage near where Blitzen was frozen and scooped him up just to shut him up as I went to talk to Marti, and thus the classic pose of Christ with a little lamb in His arms.

Maybe it’s not unlike the Lord and us. We reach a barrier – an impasse – that seems impossible only to us, and we cry out to the Lord. We just stand there and bark until we become so annoying to Him that He has to pick us up just to shut us up. But once He does… everything’s okay.

Maybe it’s all we want after all. It’s that way with Blitzen; he just wants to be picked up. Whatever the struggle he was facing, it’s gone as soon as he’s picked up. This is much better. He loves to be held. And come to think of it, don’t we?

Who knows but that maybe it’s what the Lord wants too.