A lesson in sock thievery.

Have I told you about my dog, Riley?

Riley and I have a very specific, detailed, morning routine. It starts with the alarm at 4:30 am. Sometimes I hit snooze, but I'm usually out of bed by 4:45. We go downstairs and I take a couple of vitamins and get the coffee going, then I bundle up and take him outside. When he's done his business, he comes flying back to me and we go inside. I pour a cup of coffee, grab exactly two Canine Carryout treats, and go in the living room. If I forget the treats, I am reminded as soon as I sit down. His little eyebrows go up and he looks at me sideways. "Oh yeah,."

The next part is called "tricks for treats." He goes in a circle, gets a treat. He rolls over, gets a treat. High five, treat. Shake hands, treat. And various others in his repertoire. I mix it up day to day just to keep him on his toes. Combo moves get extra treats. When they're all gone, I sit down and he heads back up the stairs to the bedroom.

Here's where you think the routine ends, but it doesn't. This is the part where Riley tries to get my or Bob's attention, and succeeds. He is a sock thief.

We try to remember not to leave good socks out for him to find, but Riley is sneaky and smart. If there are no socks laying around, he'll go fishing in the laundry basket until he finds one. (In case you wonder why we leave it open, it's because the lid to the laundry basket renders it invisible to Bob.) Then Riley will either shake it like a dead rabbit, or start gnawing on it, loudly. The idea here is to either wake Bob up or get me to come upstairs, or both.

Usually, he considers that kind of attention "mission accomplished," and he surrenders the sock without any argument. But the other day it went another way.

Riley chose one of my socks for a change and I heard him and knew what was going on. Bob was still snoring when I went upstairs to take it away, but this time, Riley wasn't going to give it up.

We locked eyes, and he clamped down. His pupils were huge. He didn't growl or show any aggression, he just made it perfectly clear that he was not going to let go. "Riley, give it to me." Nothing doing. I tugged, I threatened, I warned, I begged. The more I tried, the tighter he gripped. This went on until Bob woke up and yelled at him, and he was distracted enough for me to pry the sock out of his jaws. "Get out of my sight, dog," I told him.

Still fuming a little, I went downstairs to my morning prayer and scripture reading. But in my quiet time with God, I realized, I'm just like Riley.

I want to please God, do his will, and be at peace. I generally know what it is God wants from me, after all, Jesus made it pretty clear.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Love God, love neighbor. Got it. So most days, if I grab a sock and it's not what God wants, I stop, pray, give it up and move on. But other days, ugh, other days I have that sock that I just want to keep. And I square off against Him, clamping down hard and not letting go.

The "I need to be right" sock.

The "I have to figure this out because clearly God doesn't get it" sock.

The "poor me" sock.

The "I didn't get what I wanted, does praying even work" sock.

And so on. A laundry basket full of human-nature socks I do not want to let go of. What God must think.

Before I left for work that day I enjoyed another part of my morning routine with Riley. After my shower he tapped at the bathroom door, our signal for him to join me and watch while I get ready. I looked down at him and when we made eye contact his little nub tail wagged, as usual. He's happy. He's forgiven. He's loved.

I'm grateful for a God that understands my human-ness. Not only does he understand it, he became human to bring dignity to it. He loves me enough to look me in the eye and make me give up the sock so I can get a tiny bit closer to being who he wants me to be. That makes me happy. I'm forgiven. I'm loved.