Our current chocolate lab, Stella, loves to eat.

We feed her the same amount of the same food every day at 7:30 AM and 5:30 PM.

We have never failed to feed her.

Yet each day, anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes prior to mealtime, she starts to worry. She starts to hover around me, restless, urgently staring at me, unsettled. 

It's as if she is worried I am not going to come through for her, even though I have always come through for her.

It really irritates me.

I can't understand why she doesn't trust me.

Haven't I always been faithful?

Doesn't she know I promise to take care of her?

Doesn't she know I want her to thrive and will provide what she needs?

Why does she act as if none of these things are true?

I will feed her no matter what she does. She's my dog and I love her. 

I feel sorry for her and wish she would actually LIVE those wasted moments prior to mealtime, rather than fritter them away with anxious care. All her anxious care is a complete waste of time.

This makes me wonder if God is, at times, saddened by my anxiety, my worry that he will not provide what I need when I need it, even though he has proven himself faithful year after year after year.

When I ask the same thing over and over and over again is it like Stella circling me as if all her frantic energy is what is going to cause me to eventually give in and feed her? 

When I pray, I can rest in the knowledge that my needs and concerns are in God's good care. Yes, I can pray again about the same thing, but I certainly don't need to nip at God's heels as if he is unconcerned or unaware of my issues. God's actions flow out of his love, they are not responses to my level of energy expenditure.

God knows what I need even before I ask.

My job, it seems, is to live a life of childlike trust.

The kind of trust I wish my Stella would offer me.

Because every day at 7:30 and 5:30 I will provide what she needs.

Always have. Always will.

AMEN.