I'm Getting My Theology from a Jack Russell Terrier

Well, my dog, Jackie, did it again. She is a nine year old Jack Russell Terrier who has already had her stomach pumped twice. (Once for a bottle of Advil, another for a bag of dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses) Last night she satisfied her craving for chocolate which put her own life in peril.

My daughter went to Nashville this past weekend to attend a bridal shower of one of her best childhood friends. They had a contest of guessing how many M&M's were in a jar. The one who guessed the closest won. My daughter won the M&M's. She put them in her suitcase and brought them home. She did not completely unpack because we are going back to Nashville this next week so I can perform the wedding. 

The M&M's were sealed in a glass jar with tape around the lid. Jackie waited until everyone was gone, took the jar downstairs, removed the tape and took the lid off of the glass jar. I figured she had something that she recorded on the DVR in the den and wanted to watch it while she ate the whole jar of M&M's. Unfortunately, chocolate is toxic to Jack Russell Terriers. She has already had her stomach pumped once for "death by chocolate."

Last night I put my foot down. I said we were not going to keep pumping the dogs stomach. She was either going to make it (live) or not. "We are not having that dog's stomach pumped again!" I went to bed. As soon as I am asleep, my wife and daughter take the dog to the emergency vet. I awaken at 2:30 to a dog who is looking for places to eliminate chocolate. I eventually get up with the dog, take her outside a bunch of times and see her in a most miserable state. Eventually she went to sleep next to me on the couch and is okay this morning.

I know right now that I could buy a bag of M&M's and that dog would gorge herself with them again. Chocolate has almost killed her twice. She doesn't care. Her desire for chocolate is so great that she thinks the experience is worth the consequences.

Isn't that the way it is with sin? We know there will be consequences that we hate but we do it anyway. 

Yeah, I'm learning my theology from that dog. 

Romans 7:19-23 (ESV)
¹⁹   For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.²⁰  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.²¹  So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.²²  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,²³  but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.