My Constant Companion (Day 3, from Letters to a Friend)

 

            The will is where we determine our desires and make our choices, it is the intentions of our heart and if we don’t have strong willpower it can lead us to destruction, it is where we determine if we are going to be obedient or disobedient. Again I ask you have you seen any of these traits in your pets. I was at a Field Trial where my husband was testing one of his dogs, he had been working with for months and today was Daxs’ big day. All through the test, he had done great work, accomplishing everything asked of him.  It was the last test of the day, and Dax was sent out to search and retrieve a bird.  His time was fantastic as he broke through the brush carrying the bird in his mouth, then suddenly he stopped, stood there for a minute, and then dropped the bird and walked the rest of the way to heal at my husbands’ side. The dog, knowing better, determined he was done, choosing disobedience over obedience. THE WILL

            For every good emotion, there is a bad one, such as love and hate, happy and sad but no matter what you are feeling it will determine your attitude and can be seen in your outward countenance, our emotions influence our personality. Can you tell how your pet is feeling even though they can't speak to you; can you tell if they are sick by looking into their eyes? Over the years we have had and lost, many pets but the most amazing love story happened one afternoon when my husband came in from being out in the yard with his last hunting dog. When they came in he sat down in the chair and lowered his head, I has seen that look before and I knew instantly what was happening.  Broke slowly walked over to me and laid her head in my lap and let me love on her, and then she went to our youngest son and did the same. With tears streaming down my face I watched as she went to stand beside where my husband was sitting, with one final look she met with his eyes and the two of them walked back outside. Somehow Broke knew it was her time, but she wanted to say her goodbyes to the family she loved. EMOTION

            We’ve all had shared similar experiences with our pets but it really doesn’t confirm the answer if an animal has a soul. Again we must look into the language in which the Word of God was written. Genesis 2:7 states, “And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,”  the Hebrew for a “living soul”  is hayyah [living] nephesh [soul]. Now let’s back up to Genesis 1:30, “Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life . . . ” this states that animals have hayyah [life].  In Hebrew, the word nephesh is also used, the same words as used for a “living soul.” The mind . . . intelligence,  the will . . . make choices and, emotions . . . personality, the same characteristics we see in our pets.

In my research at one point, I had read an article by Marianne Widmalm, that gave a new insight to something so simple that I had completely overlooked, and made a note in the margin of one of my Bibles it says,  When people dismiss the idea of animals having a soul because the Bible does not pacifically say that God-breathed  “life” into them, like He did with Adam, then we could apply the same argument to a woman because it does not pacifically say that God-breathed “life” into Eve either. (Genesis 2:21-22