Unlimited Love

Fiona Isaacs
9 hours ago
3 min read

Google tells me that there are probably more than 700 million dogs in the world. And yet I care about one that I have never even met.

Dozer is dying and I find that I care.

I never expected to have a parasocial relationship with a dog. I am not even particularly a “dog” person. I don’t own one, and I don’t aspire to. It’s not that I hate dogs, but I have never found them particularly interesting or appealing.

And yet, I know this dog’s name. For years I have seen photo updates of his adventures, his preferences, his antics. And so I care about this dog.

Seven hundred million dogs. But this one I can name.

Names take us out of the realm of obscurity and out of the numberless multitude. They give us an identity. Names place us in the context of a relationship; they are personal. Names mean we can be recognised. Importantly, names are not numbers. They are not markers of our existence as one among many, but a sign of someone knowing us, knowing who we are.

In Isaiah 43, God’s promise of protection is bound up in his knowledge of our name, it ties together name-knowing, belonging and protection.

““Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.”

We can trust God through difficulty because he knows who we are. We belong to a company of far more than 700 million, and yet each of us is important to God. And the Bible goes further, God has known us, by name, since before the creation of the world.

And unlike my much more casual knowledge of Dozer, God’s love for us is not limited to knowing facts about us. He does not care about us in the abstract. He promises that he will be with us in our suffering, through the fire and through the flood. God’s love for us is personal. He proves it at the cross.

But to return to Dozer for a minute, the fact that I know this particular dog’s name, doesn’t really explain why I care about him.

I think that after years of reading Nagi's devotion to her dog, I have come to see him as lovely, because that is how she sees him. Her love for him, her joy in his company, her delight in his presence, makes him valuable to me.

In Sally Lloyd-Jones’ Jesus Storybook Bible, one of the recurring phrases is that God’s people are “lovely because he loved them”. This captures why I care about Dozer, he is lovely because Nagi loves him.

What grace to find here. To know that love is powerful enough to make the unlovable lovely.

God’s love sees the dignity, the worth and the beauty in each person.

And if I can see the loveliness of Dozer, how much more should I be able to see the loveliness of each person I encounter. Every individual who is lovely to the God who created them. Each one filled with dignity because of God’s powerful love.

So this weekend, I pray for Nagi as she loses her dog.

And I extend that to pray for all those who are grieving people or animals who are lovely to them.

And I pray that God would give me his love for all that is lovely to him.