Do Pets Distract the Christian Life?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | Episode 1001 now in the life of the podcast, and our question today comes

00:00:09.000 | from a longtime listener named Jordan. "Dear Pastor John, what is your

00:00:12.800 | conviction about owning a pet? Do you have any pets, or do you see them more as

00:00:17.320 | a hindrance and a distraction when considering how we should spend our time

00:00:21.200 | here during our short stay on earth?"

00:00:24.000 | Well, the first thing I would say is surely, yes, pets can take up too much of

00:00:33.400 | your time and too much of your money, just like food can, and health can, and

00:00:39.920 | family can, and church can, and work can, and every hobby under the sun can, and

00:00:47.720 | sports can, and all manner of entertainment can, and cars can, and

00:00:52.960 | clothes can, and home improvement projects can, and lawn care can, and

00:00:56.800 | exercise can, and hanging out with friends can, etc., etc. Yes, yes, yes, pets and

00:01:03.240 | anything else besides the glory of God can be a distraction from what we ought

00:01:08.480 | to be doing. Yes, right, good warning. So, if your conscience is indicting you for

00:01:16.600 | the money you spend, or the time you spend combing your dog's fur, or

00:01:23.040 | scratching her behind the ears, you should stop. Stop. You should get rid of

00:01:27.880 | the dog. No pet is worth the damaging of your conscience. Or, if you look at the

00:01:36.240 | sixty billion dollars a year that Americans spend on pets annually and

00:01:41.680 | resolve to spend nothing, absolutely nothing, in order to protest that

00:01:47.720 | priority, you are fully justified so to protest, keeping in mind that America

00:01:55.440 | spends 1.8 billion dollars on toothpaste annually, and 22 billion dollars on air

00:02:00.560 | conditioning annually, and 2.8 billion dollars at Halloween on candy, and 48

00:02:06.560 | billion dollars a year on coffee. So, we have to be careful with the way we use

00:02:12.560 | our numbers. The question with regard to time and money is not only whether it's

00:02:20.040 | exorbitant, which it can be, but shouldn't be, but even if it's modest, would that

00:02:27.880 | time, if you had no pet, be devoted to more refreshing, more encouraging, more

00:02:34.480 | edifying, more loving, more God-glorifying tasks? That's the question.

00:02:38.880 | Mathematically, you might compute that those ten minutes or half hour a day

00:02:43.520 | could be better used, but my question is, would they? The same could be said about

00:02:49.520 | almost any activity of lesser importance in our lives. Giving up, would they

00:02:54.440 | automatically be then piled into the other column of more significant

00:03:00.040 | activity? I think we will go mad, at least John Piper will go mad, if we try to live

00:03:09.120 | our lives in that kind of mathematical way. We all know that there is excess

00:03:16.200 | that dishonors God in lesser matters, and we should spot that and avoid that, and

00:03:22.720 | far too many of us fail to spot that and avoid that. But if we think we can

00:03:29.960 | do that every minute of our day and use only what is maximally useful in those

00:03:39.000 | minutes, we'll probably become a victim of a mental disorder. They've got names

00:03:43.840 | for those, and I certainly would. I have tried it. So, why might one consider a pet

00:03:52.080 | worthy of even a small amount of money and amount of time? And my main answer

00:03:58.800 | would be based on why God created animals at all. He didn't have to, and

00:04:05.160 | Genesis seems to say he meant for the air and the land and the sea to be full

00:04:11.920 | of creatures. God delights, it seems, in, let me call it, variegated fullness of

00:04:19.960 | space. Really, really variegated, like millions upon millions of species. And

00:04:26.640 | besides the sheer usefulness of animals, like a horse to get around once

00:04:32.520 | upon a time, or fish for food, or cows for milk, or worms for the soil, or sheep for

00:04:38.320 | sacrifices and sweaters, besides the usefulness, the relationship between

00:04:44.240 | animals and man in the Bible seems to be one of God-saturated fascination. Listen

00:04:53.320 | to Job 39. "Can you hunt the prey for the lion or satisfy the appetite of the

00:04:59.120 | young lions? Do you know when the mountain goat gives birth?

00:05:04.280 | Do you observe the calving of the does? Who has let the wild donkey go free? Is

00:05:11.640 | the wild ox willing to serve you? The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but

00:05:18.480 | are they pinions and plumage of love? They're idiots!" That's my paraphrase. "Do

00:05:23.920 | you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? Is it by

00:05:30.660 | your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south?

00:05:35.640 | Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?"

00:05:40.920 | That's Job 39. Or what about Job 12? "Ask the beasts, they will teach you. The birds

00:05:48.280 | of the heavens and they will tell you. Or the bushes of the earth and they will

00:05:53.480 | teach you. And the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does

00:05:58.360 | not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?" Or Proverbs 30 24. "Four things

00:06:05.040 | on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise. The ants are a people

00:06:09.400 | not strong, yet they provide food in summer. The rot badgers are a people not

00:06:13.920 | mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs. The locusts have no king, yet they

00:06:18.920 | march in rank. The lizard you can take in your hands, and yet he dwells in kings

00:06:25.000 | palaces." Or the most familiar of all, Matthew 6. Jesus says, "Look at the birds

00:06:30.400 | of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly

00:06:34.560 | Father feeds them all. Are you not a much more value than they?" Same with plants.

00:06:39.880 | Consider the lilies. So, without going to any more psychological detail, which I

00:06:45.160 | could, or spiritual detail, it seems to me that having a pet may fall into the

00:06:53.600 | category of God-saturated fascination and joy. So I do have a dog, and her name

00:07:02.680 | is Dusty. She's an eight-year-old golden doodle, and I could give reasons for why

00:07:08.640 | I think it's healthy for children to have such a dog, but we could do

00:07:14.400 | that another time, maybe. It's just Noel and me at home now, no excuse. Like, here

00:07:19.640 | we are. So what is Dusty to me? Well, if Jesus says, "Consider the birds," etc., I say,

00:07:29.640 | "Consider Dusty. She loves people more than food. She overflows with affection

00:07:37.600 | without testing your character first. She is indomitably happy, rain or shine. She

00:07:46.240 | holds no grudges whatsoever, no matter how she's treated. Her youth at eight

00:07:53.360 | seems to be renewed like the eagles. So, if you, Father, so taught a beast with no

00:08:01.240 | soul, no moral or spiritual capacities to live that kind of life, how much more

00:08:07.440 | should her master feel ashamed that even with the Holy Spirit I struggle to do

00:08:13.680 | those things?" Yeah, thank you, Pastor John. And Jordan, thanks for the excellent question.

00:08:18.680 | And everyone who's listening, thanks for joining us and listening in today and

00:08:22.480 | for making this podcast a part of your weekly routine. You can find our audio

00:08:27.360 | feeds and our episode archive, of course, and you can reach us via email all

00:08:30.800 | through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. We are

00:08:37.640 | gonna break for the weekend now, and we return on Monday to talk about the trial

00:08:41.160 | of personal pain. Does my pain mean that God is angry with me for my sin? It's

00:08:47.840 | such an important question. It's coming up on Monday. I'm your host Tony Reinhke.

00:08:52.120 | Have a great weekend.

00:08:55.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Do Pets Distract the Christian Life?

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