Episode one thousand and one now in the life of the podcast and our question today comes

from a long time listener named Jordan, Dear Pastor John, what is your conviction about

owning a pet? Do you have any pets or do you see them more as a hindrance in the distraction

when considering how we should spend our time here during our short stay on earth?

Well the first thing I would say is surely yes pets can take up too much of your time and too

much of your money just like food can and health can and family can and church can and work can

and every hobby under the sun can and sports can and all manner of entertainment can and cars can

and clothes can and home improvement projects can and lawn care can and exercise can and hanging out

with friends can etc etc yes yes yes pets and anything else besides the glory of God can be a

distraction from what we ought to be doing yes right good warning so if your conscience is

indicting you for the money you spend or the time you spend combing your dogs fur or scratching her

behind the ears you should stop stop you should get rid of the dog no pet is worth the damaging of your

conscience or if you look at the sixty billion dollars a year that American spend on pets annually

and resolve to spend nothing absolutely nothing in order to protest that priority you are fully

justified so to protest keeping in mind that America spends $1.8 billion on toothpaste annually and

$22 billion on air conditioning annually and $2.8 billion at Halloween on candy and $48 billion

a year on coffee so we have to be careful with the way we use our numbers the question with regard

to time and money is not only whether it's exorbitant which it can be but shouldn't be

but even if it's modest would that time if you had no pet be devoted to more refreshing more

encouraging more edifying more loving more god glorifying tasks that's a question mathematically

you might compute that those ten minutes or half hour a day could be better used but my question

is would they the same could be said about almost any activity of lesser importance in our lives

...