God Loves Our Pets Even More Than We Do (Imagine the implications!)
written by: Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. ”
I’ve told this story before, in a devotion or a sermon, about a minister in a church down the road who wrote a weekly newspaper article. A child sent him the question, “My dog died. Did she go to heaven?” In the article, the pastor said abruptly, “No.” In my opinion, he argued poorly that the Bible does not give one example of animals going to heaven, so it must mean that God does not include animals in the kingdom. The lack of pastoral care for a child sickened me. Yet, there was a theological issue we should not ignore, and that is, just because something is not included in the ancient text of the Bible does not mean that God doesn’t care about it.
We must consider that perhaps God loved animals so much that their heavenly invitation was assumed. God loved them enough to create them. Next, God took the time to call humans to care for the other created beings. Third, in the mythic story of Noah’s Ark, God took as much care in preserving each species as the divine One did in saving the human line. All three activities took place in the prehistory of early Genesis descriptions. I argue that God took special care of the valued creatures we call animals.
In “How I’m Coping With the Death of My Pet,” Martin Vidal shares the pain of losing a feline friend. Vidal finds comfort in saying, “They may feel the immediate pain or discomfort, but they don’t compound it with anticipation of what’s to come-or dwell on it once it has passed.” His animal did not forecast “The trajectory of their health.” Vidal’s answer to why death is so sad and painful? “It’s because death is the end of life, and life is just that good.”
The story does not need to end in despair for those who have loved and mourned divinely created, living creatures that were not human. We can do more than appreciate the time we had with them. We can hand their lives over to our merciful, grace-filled, and ever-creating God, who can sustain life eternally. If we can love our animals, as limited as we are in our humanness, how much more does the God who created each one love and desire their continuation of life? I trust God to love the dogs in our lives even more than we do! God’s love gives me the confidence to trust we will see our pets again someday.
