by Kristi Overton Johnson Do the Doo! Have you ever done something or perhaps failed to do something that required you to humble yourself and make things right? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me recently. I was nearing the end of my morning walk with my energetic Labrador retriever, when something happened that I would regret for hours. Mater, my dog, relieved himself by going number two on a neighbor’s lawn. No big deal; it happens all the time. All I had to do was stop, pull out a plastic bag from my fanny pack (yes, I wear a fanny pack when I walk, much to my kids’ dismay), and pick up Mater’s deposit. But I didn’t. Nope. For some reason—one I would discover later—I just left it there and continued walking home. A few steps into my walk, however, I heard a little voice in my head saying, “Kristi, you need to go back and pick that up.” But I just kept walking, all the while justifying why my leaving poop behind was actually a good thing. “It’ll decompose and fertilize their lawn,” I reasoned. But with each step, the voice grew louder. No justification I came up with could silence the voice of conviction in my head. So, when I got home, I put Mater inside, jumped in my car, and went back, plastic bag in hand, to the scene of the crime. I looked around the neighbor’s yard for several minutes, turning over leaves until I finally found it. With bag in hand, I scooped up the offending refuse, jumped back in the car, and drove home. Mission accomplished! Or, so I thought. At this point of the story, you’re probably thinking, “This girl is nuts!” You might be right. But here’s the thing. More than anything, I want to be a person who lives above reproach. I want a heart like God’s that is motivated by love and operates on the highest level of integrity in every area of my life. Because of that, I constantly ask God to search my heart, test my motives, and point out anything in my life that offends Him, just as King David did in Psalm 139:23–24. I don’t want ungodly thoughts, motives, or actions in my life. “Don’t let me get away with anything,” I pray. And He doesn’t. Not even dog poop! “I’m sorry, God,” I said, certain the lesson was over. “Go tell them you’re sorry,” the still, small voice whispered. What!?!? Surely, I didn’t hear that right. No way would God want me to knock on someone’s door and apologize for not picking up my dog’s poop. “It’s just poop, for goodness’ sake. I took the time to go back and pick it up. How many other people would do that?” I thought, full of pride. Just then, like in a playhouse, a curtain opened to the stage of my heart, revealing the reason I hadn’t bothered to stop and scoop the poop. It wasn’t that I was too lazy or in too much of a hurry to pick up it up…not at all! The real reason was that I had a stinky heart filled with unloving thoughts and judgments toward these neighbors. That miserable heart had led me to leave the poop there on purpose! Let me tell you something—this reason stunk more than the poop I held in my lap as I drove home. Yes, it was true, all of it. I had, indeed, left Mater’s waste in their yard on purpose. And God pointed out that it wasn’t the first time, nor was it the first yard! Even with this knowledge, however, there was no way I was going to go back again and knock on their door. They would think I was crazy! Instead, I went to my house, quickly changed clothes, and drove my son to school. And for the next seven hours, I wrestled internally with the thought of returning to that neighbor’s house and apologizing, not only for ignoring my neighborly duty of picking up the doodie, but also for harboring judgments toward them. (Someone, remind me why I ask the Lord to reveal the ugly things in my heart.) The wrestling match left me exhausted and, if I’m completely honest, angry. Why couldn’t God just let me slide on this one? Why did He have to be so nitpicky? How humiliating this was going to be! I called a friend to vent. “Kristi, God is refining you,” she laughed. “I’ve been there, too. Sis, you’re just going to have to do what you know you have to do. You have to go to that house and ask for forgiveness.” I knew she was right. If I truly wanted to move to the next level in my spiritual life and become more like Christ, if I wanted more of Him and less of me, then I had to be obedient—even if it caused me to look foolish or be uncomfortable. When I drove into our neighborhood that afternoon, I made a beeline for my neighbor’s driveway. I felt like my heart was beating outside of my chest as I waited for him to answer the door. “Maybe he won’t be home, and I’ll be off the hook,” I thought. No such luck. The door opened, and my neighbor, someone I’d never met before, looked at me with a look that said, “What do you want?” I could tell he didn’t feel well and by ringing the doorbell, I had pulled him out of his comfy bed. I proceeded to explain my morning…how I had left the poop in his yard, then been convicted to go back and pick it up. As I proceeded to tell him about driving in the car with Mater’s poop in my lap, the man bent over and began to laugh. The more I tried to finish my story, the more he laughed—that is until his pneumonia kicked in, and he began to cough violently. “Please…stop,” he begged as tears formed in his eyes. “It hurts to laugh.” I hurried to finish my story, not leaving out one detail for fear I’d have to go back and tell the whole truth. Finally, I apologized for leaving 32 kojministries.org Issue 2 2017
20115AS
To see the actual publication please follow the link above