Today I read a story about a man in Kiev who tried to be a modern-day Daniel. He lowered himself on a rope into a lion's attraction at the zoo. He shouted that God, if he existed, would save him. And he was promptly killed by a lion.

Here's a link to the story:
http://news.aol.com/strange/story/_a/lioness-kills-man-who-enters-zoo-cage/n20060605083809990002?cid=936

I find this so unbelievably sad. But I think most people who have sought God at some point in their lives can relate to this man's experiment. We are always looking for evidence of God, for proof that he exists and he is powerful and that he cares about us. We try to test God, in order to affirm our belief in Him.

For me, this test was about a dog. The summer that I was twenty-one, I spent with my mother in our house in Idaho Falls. My younger brother had died that previous April. Our whole family was devastated, but none more than my mother and me. Our dog had died the previous winter. My old cat had died a few days after my brother. The house that summer was dark and empty without my brother or the animals.

Early in the summer it seemed like God had given us a gift. My mother brought home a stray dog she'd found wandering in the neighborhood. The dog was a half-lab, half whippet, or something of that sort. She was a medium-sized dog with short yellow fur, long and silky ears, understanding brown eyes, and an intuitive sense of when to be quiet and when to be silly. My mother and I called the dog Lydia. We said she was the perfect dog.

I noticed right away that Lydia was not good with cars. She had a tendency to stand in the middle of the road. We lived on a long, straight road with few stopsigns, where cars and logging trucks rushed by all day and night. That summer, I laid in bed and prayed every night that God would keep Lydia safe. I did more than pray. I bargained. I challenged. I told God that my family had been through enough. I didn't understand how a benevolent God could allow my brother to die, but if he didn't protect that little dog it just might push me into becoming an atheist.

Later that summer, I came home from a movie to find that little sweet dog dead on the side of the road. It was a crushing blow to me. Just thinking about it can still bring tears to me eyes. I did not become an atheist. But I was lost for a long time. And, while I have had nearly 7 years to think about this incident, I still don't quite know how to take it. For the longest time it felt like a time when God had failed me.

The rational part of me says that dogs who stand on the road get hit. Men who jump into lions dens get eaten. The spiritual part of me looks for the way that God has used Lydia's death in my life. It reminds me that we are not supposed to test God. But I always feel a bit confused about what is testing God and what is asking for a miracle. The subject of miracles has also been a fascinating one for me.