A Three-Footed Coon Dog

It was always a treat for me to go to my Papaw’s house when I was a boy.

Part of the reason was that Papaw kept his coonhounds up on the hill behind the house. He didn’t have one of those fancy kennel setups you see today with concrete floors, stainless-steel bowls, automatic waterers, and everything looking like a canine condominium.

Papaw’s setup was a little more Appalachian than that.

The dogs were well cared for, but they had homemade doghouses and chains long enough to give them plenty of room to move around. As soon as we pulled in, I would scurry up that side of the hill to see what dogs Papaw had.

Most of them were a kid’s dream. Friendly hounds that were happy to see you coming.

Most of them.

There was one old ill-tempered bluetick named Sam who apparently believed children were one of the consequences of the Fall.

I gave Sam plenty of room.

But one of the dogs I remember best was a Walker hound named Doc.

Doc was different.

When he was still a young dog, he had gotten tangled up in a barbed-wire fence and was injured so badly that one of his front feet had to be amputated.

So Doc was a three-foot dog. I guess technically that made him a "yard dog."

Sorry. Dad humor.

But here is what was amazing about Doc.

Nobody ever explained to him that he was handicapped.

When Papaw turned those dogs loose at night, Doc didn't sit around the truck feeling sorry for himself. He didn't watch the other hounds disappear into the darkness and decide that his hunting days were over.

He went hunting.

And that old three-footed dog could hunt.

He would get through the mountains, strike a coon, work a track, and when he got it treed, he was as hard a tree dog as you could want.

As best as I could tell, Doc had simply figured out how to live with what had happened to him.

He couldn't change the accident.

He couldn't grow another foot.

So he learned how to run on three.

And somehow, watching that old dog all those years ago reminds me of a man in the Bible named Mephibosheth.

Mephibosheth was the grandson of King Saul and the son of Jonathan. When he was only five years old, word came that Saul and Jonathan had been killed. His nurse grabbed him and fled, afraid that the new king would eliminate Saul's descendants. In the rush, she dropped him.

The Bible says:

"And he became lame." — 2 Samuel 4:4

One moment changed the rest of his earthly life.

Mephibosheth didn't choose it.

He didn't cause it.

He couldn't undo it.

Everywhere he went, he carried the evidence of something that had happened to him.

Years later, David became king. Because of his covenant friendship with Jonathan, David asked an extraordinary question:

"Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" — 2 Samuel 9:1

They told David about Mephibosheth.

And I love the way they described him:

"There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet." — 2 Samuel 9:3

Isn't it interesting how easily people can become identified by what is wrong with them?

He's the crippled one.

She's the divorced one.

He's the addict.

She's the one who messed up.

He's the one who lost everything.

Sometimes other people put those labels on us.

Sometimes we put them on ourselves.

But King David didn't ask whether Mephibosheth could walk.

He sent for him.

When Mephibosheth arrived, he fell before David, probably terrified of what the king might do.

Instead, David said:

"Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan... and you shall eat at my table always." — 2 Samuel 9:7

That last part gets me.

At the king's table.

When Mephibosheth was traveling down the road, everybody could see his disability.

When he struggled to stand, they could see it.

When he walked into a room, they could see it.

But when Mephibosheth sat at David's table beside the king's family, something happened.

The table covered his broken legs.

Sitting there, he looked like every other son at the table.

The thing that had marked him his entire life was hidden beneath the king's table.

And there is a beautiful picture of grace in that.

Every one of us comes to Jesus carrying something.

Some wounds everybody can see.

Others are hidden deep inside us.

Some were done to us.

Some we did to ourselves.

And every one of us carries something even deeper than our wounds: our sin.

We don't come to God's table because we have managed to fix ourselves.

We don't come because we finally learned to walk straight enough.

We don't come because our past disappeared.

We come because the King invited us.

Mephibosheth's place at David's table wasn't earned by Mephibosheth. It was given because of David's covenant with Jonathan.

And our place in God's family isn't earned by us either.

It is given because of Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote:

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace." — Ephesians 1:7

I still think about old Doc sometimes.

That barbed-wire fence took something from him that he never got back in this life.

But it didn't stop him from running.

It didn't stop him from hunting.

It didn't stop him from doing what he had been made to do.

Maybe you have something like that.

Something happened to you that cannot be undone.

Something was taken.

Something broke.

Something left a scar.

Don't let what happened to you become the definition of who you are.

And for the Christian, there is an even greater promise coming.

One day, every child of God is going home.

Revelation says:

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore." — Revelation 21:4

There won't be any limping around heaven.

No wheelchairs.

No cancer.

No aching joints.

No broken hearts.

No scars from abuse.

No grief.

No shame.

No sin.

No old barbed-wire fences that still hurt when we remember them.

We will all gather in the presence of our King, not because we arrived there whole, but because Jesus made us whole.

Mephibosheth came to David's table with broken feet.

I come to Jesus' table with my own brokenness.

So do you.

But here's the good news:

There's room at the King's table.

And when the King calls you His own, what is broken about you is no longer what defines you.

"So Mephibosheth... ate always at the king's table." — 2 Samuel 9:13

That verse ends by reminding us that he was lame in both feet.

He was still broken.

But now he was broken at the King's table.

And that made all the difference.