Why are dogs man’s best friend? When they are operating at their highest conscious level, they demonstrate angelic qualities. Dogs don’t judge us. Dogs forgive us for our errors. Dogs often show us unconditional love. And dogs have given their lives to save those they hold dear.

Dogs represent many of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Don’t we wish all humans operated at that level of consciousness? That would make the world a better place.

Our 11-year-old rescued Scottie, Bernie — whose antics were the inspiration for my children’s book, “Bernie’s First Christmas,” and who was the Scottie that became my service dog for three years when I wrestled with two rounds of cancer — spent his first six months of life sitting in a small cage surrounded by humans. Being a very smart dog, he invested that time in studying how humans communicate and behave.

When Bernie is with people, he is in that angelic mode. When he is with dogs, he generally operates at his lower consciousness level and acts more like the wolf that is also in him. He steals food from his mates. He snarls if they don’t give him what he wants. He even bites a friendly dog if it has something he would like. He never does any of these things with humans.

Where does that higher, angelic consciousness come from? God, of course. All living creatures on Earth have the spark of God in them. It was God’s “thought” that created them. Then through long and close association with humans, dogs adopted the best of man’s behaviors as their way of living happily with us.

Let’s take a quick look at Earth’s creation story to remember again how that spark of God became a part of all of us. As a devout follower of the teachings of Jesus, I love quantum physics. In this tiny, amazing world, at the subatomic level, there is something called “wave-particle duality.” Wave energy, such as light and particle energy, something you can touch, can behave interchangeably, depending upon the experiment.

Mankind has searched for the cause of creation and life for a long time. In more recent times, quantum physics has discovered possible answers to what was written thousands of years ago as an allegory: the opening chapter of the book of Genesis. The book says that Earth’s creation began when God “spoke” the Word. Note that “speaking the Word” can be done by voice or with deliberate conscious thought.

Genesis says God “spoke.” God poured his “thought” into vibrating swirls of energy as it transformed into the Earth’s creation. Energy turned into Earth. To learn more about this, a good read is “Quantum Glory,” by Phil Mason.

Our physical world is filled with invisible vibrating energy. Just think of the many invisible energies we know about that are vibrating around us all the time: electricity, radio waves, microwaves, cell phone waves, and many forms of light waves, just to name a few.

It is that kind of energy which our creator turned into Earth’s material matter: hard, liquid, and finally, living matter. God changed energy into matter with the focus that the physicists use when monitoring a quantum experiment that changes electrons to matter. Thus, each and every living thing on this planet has a little spark of God’s “thought” in it.

Now let’s go back to what we can learn from Bernie and all our dog friends. At one level, just like dogs, we have a consciousness, which is very base and selfish. It believes in taking what it can get when it can get it. It deems that judging others harshly makes it feel better about itself. And it considers vengeance as the solution when it feels it has been harmed. Ultimately, it considers fear and hate useful ideas.

Also in each of us is that spark of divine life, that little piece of God that made us living matter. When we decide to take the time to develop that spark, as Bernie did in his own way so that he could live happily with people, something beautiful begins. We learn to love, and love, when realized intensely enough, brings you to a higher consciousness level.

That new, higher level of consciousness rises above greed, hate, fear, and a desire for vengeance. Deep, divine love becomes more and more like perfect unchanging good, our merciful God. We become the being that Jesus showed us we could be.

Like Bernie, when we work every day to live at a little higher consciousness level, life becomes better, easier, and healthier. We learn to give and receive love from all those around us. This becomes a different and more enjoyable world to our eyes. Through that conscious effort to grow the divine spark within, we become new. We become the creator of a new life for ourselves. We become “born again” as defined in the New Testament.

Take a good look at your dog. Even if you don’t believe in God, you can find a new life just by following his lead to be the very best and most loving person you can be.

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.” Proverbs 3:3-4