“Dear Jesus, Will My Dog Be in Heaven?”

Claire Black: Welcome to True Girl, a podcast for girls and their moms. I’m Claire Black. Together, we’ll explore God’s truth for us one drive at a time! Buckle up. You’re about to grow closer to each other—and closer to Jesus!

Have you ever had a question that felt so big or so personal that you wondered if you should even ask it out loud? I sure have!

Maybe you’ve thought, Does God really hear me when I pray? Why do bad things happen? or even, Is my dog going to be in heaven?

If you could write a letter to Jesus and ask Him anything, what questions would you want Him to answer? 

Dannah Gresh and Suzy Weibel are in the studio this season answering snail mail. Snail mail is regular mail—letters and packages delivered by the good ol’ post office! It's called snail mail because it travels much more slowly than email . . . like a snail. I should probably say that this is not to say the postal service is slow. (The internet’s just super fast!) 

To be honest, we love snail mail, and we’re grateful for the people who deliver it. At True Girl, we get lots of snail mail from girls with hard questions. This season, we'll use our Bibles to try to figure out how Jesus might write back, because Jesus isn’t afraid of your questions. He already knows what’s on your heart, and He loves it when you come to Him looking for truth.

Now, the Bible might not directly answer every question you could possibly think of. But it does tell us everything you need to know about God, His love for you, and how you can trust Him—even when you don’t know every answer.

So today, Dannah Gresh and Suzy Weibel are tackling one of our most-asked questions. It’s one almost every animal lover has asked at one time or another.

Here’s Dannah.

Dannah Gresh: Suzy, I am so excited about this season of True Girl! First of all, just look at this . . . 

Suzy Weibel: Whew! 

Dannah: What is this?

Suzy: That’s a mountain of snail mail!

Dannah: This is a mountain of snail mail. How many inches is that?

Suzy: I’m going to say, six inches. Be careful where you put that down, the table is wobbly. THUMP!

Dannah: Look at this one from Brookie.

Suzy: Aww, she drew a snail.

Dannah: That’s my favorite, when they draw a snail. Here’s what Brook wrote:

“My name is Brooke, and I’m in fourth grade. I’m ten. My mom and I are reading Lies Girls Believe, and I love it.

I have the True Girl box, and it’s one of my favorite gifts that I’ve ever gotten. What you write is meaningful for the body of Christ.”

I love it! She says the body of Christ!

Suzy: Wow!

Dannah:

You are working to get people to get closer to Jesus, and how you do it is amazing!

Love,
Brookie

Suzy: Aww, that’s awesome!

Dannah: Yeah. So we have all these letters, and I would say that about a third of them have really hard questions in them.

So I just thought we’d jump into the studio for a season and answer them.

Suzy: Challenge our brains a little bit.

Dannah: The one that comes up the most . . . I actually was talking to Addie about this last night at the playground. Listen to her little voice saying this question. We started talking about hard questions, and she said this.

Addie: “Will my dog be in heaven?”

Dannah: First of all, that is my granddaughter Addie. Is that not the sweetest voice you’ve ever heard?

Suzy: It is precious.

Dannah: But . . . will my dog be in heaven? 

Before we answer the question, you know what a dog is. Of course, if you have a chameleon or a ferret, we are answering that question too. But first things first, what do we mean by heaven?

Suzy: Yeah, so let’s have a common understanding here.

Dannah: Some people mean angels in the sky, floating on clouds, a faraway place.

Suzy: Since we are going to turn to God’s Word for our answers, let’s define heaven the way God’s Word defines it: heaven will be a new earth.

Dannah: A lot of people don’t know that.

Suzy: I know. So often we think of a place in the clouds. But when you look out the window right now and everything you see—the trees, the grass, the flowers, the fields, the oceans—they will all be there.

Dannah: Yeah.

Suzy: Perfected and made new.

Dannah: His creation which was broken by sin will no longer be broken.

Sometimes I wonder what the colors will be like. If they are fixed, if they are redeemed (the word the Bible uses), there might be more colors than we see now.

Suzy: Here’s a teaser, because we are going to talk about this. Maybe we what we see animals doing now, we’ll be able to see them do so much better, because they are broken now.

Dannah: Or maybe they do things . . . like in the Bible there is a donkey that talks . . . and a snake.

Suzy: And you know, the Bible doesn’t say that they were given speech for just that moment. The Bible says the God opened their mouths.

Dannah: Hmmm. So we are not saying that we know that. But what we are saying is that we do know that heaven is our earth fixed and redeemed..

Suzy: Made as God originally intended it to be. Because we will be resurrected and the earth also will be.

Dannah: So with that foundation of heaven, let’s dive into this question, “Will my dog be in heaven?” Have you ever been asked that question?

Suzy: I haven been asked that question, and I’ve wondered about it myself.

Dannah: You have?

Suzy: I have. I have four dogs currently . . . I know that sounds crazy.

Dannah: I have just one. His name is Moosie. And, he is probably not going to be with me very much longer. He is going to be 17 in August, so I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately.

Suzy: I have one that we are getting close to saying good-bye to as well.

Dannah: So let’s see if we can answer it. What are we going to use to answer it?

Suzy: We’ll use God’s Word. We always use God’s Word. And God’s Word says that there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors. So we’ll say some things that some other Christians that we look up to and respect have said also.

Dannah: Yeah, you might recognize some of their names.

Suzy: It’s interesting how many people have addressed this question.

Dannah: Yeah, I was surprised at what you found. I think the first thing is really amazing that I looked over the research (and I should say Suzy did all the research for this season), it’s that the Bible says over and over again . . . I never saw it until I looked at your notes, but God really cares about the animals He made.

Suzy: It’s amazing. They aren’t just mentioned in the Bible; they take part in the worship of God.

Dannah: We see that in all creation. So what were some places in the Bible that you saw that animals were loved and cared for by God?

Suzy: Of course, we are classified along with many animals as mammals. Human beings are mammals. 

Dannah: Now, if that seems heretical, just hang on because we have some counterpoints for that coming along. 

Suzy: But yeah, we do. But we're not the same. We'll just start right from the beginning. We should say this: we are not the same. Human beings are made in God's image; the animals are not. 

But the flood is another place where very early in the Bible we see God's immense care for animals.

Dannah: Yeah, He says, "Take two of each animal, send them two by two into the ark.

You know who I want to meet when I get to heaven?

Suzy: Noah?

Dannah: Mrs. Noah. I think she was keeping the animals alive. I think he was steering the boat. I don't know.

Suzy: Have you been to the Ark Encounter? 

Dannah: Yes, it's amazing! They're not even paying us to say that. There's a great big ark in Kentucky. It's right outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. And it's the actual size of the ark in the Bible—which is massive!

Suzy: Massive as you drive up. 

Dannah: It's a museum. You’ve got to see it. 

Let's open our Bibles in Genesis to the flood. Genesis chapter 9. What's it say?

Suzy: So in Genesis 9, God's talking about the rainbow, and He says something amazing as He references the rainbow. We see that promise of the rainbow for us is also made for the animals, and that is that He will never again destroy the earth. God said:

“I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come.I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds,and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.” (vv. 12–16)

He loves His creation! That includes your dog. 

Dannah: That's right. That includes my dog. That's so cool. Where else do you see that He loves creation and animals in Scripture?

Suzy: How about in the story of Jonah?

Dannah: Okay, this one shocked me that you found this. I was like, "Huh, never noticed that before.

Suzy: Right, because when we talk about Jonah, we often talk about how God loved Nineveh—as awful as those people were—but He loved them. He had compassion for them. He said they don't know their right hand from their left. But listen to what He also said. 

He said “Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals.”

Dannah: That just blew me away a little bit.

Suzy: “Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?” 

Dannah: Yes, that's what God said. He cared about the animals. 

Okay, throw me one more.

Suzy: Would it shock you if we mentioned the Ten Commandments?

Dannah: It might.

Suzy: So this is another place where we see God loves animals.

Yes. So in the Ten Commandments we know that the seventh day: “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy for six days God worked.” But what do we do on the seventh day?

Dannah: We rest.

Suzy: We rest. 

Dannah: Well, we're supposed to rest on the seventh day. 

Suzy: We do the dishes. But God commanded this rest to benefit the animals too.

Dannah: Hmm. So say.

Suzy: Yep. So this is what He says.

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you.” (Ex. 20:8–10)

So the entire household was to take a day of rest, including the animals. 

Dannah: Including the animals! Did you ever see that before you started researching this question of will my dog be in heaven?

Suzy: I mean, we've read all of these passages multiple times, but I think we just tend to blow over them because that's not what we're looking for.

Dannah: So, point one: God cares deeply about His animals.

Now, you mentioned a moment ago to answer this question, we are going to look at the counsel of Scripture and the counsel of others. So what about some of the things that people who've studied the Bible through the centuries believe about animals in heaven.

Suzy: Well, the most notable one, like my go-to guy when I'm looking at questions about heaven, is probably Randy Alcorn.

Dannah: Yeah, because he wrote that like encyclopedia. It's a book. It's actually a book. 

Suzy: It's huge, but it's a really thick book. It's almost as thick as our stack of snail mail there.

Dannah: Exactly. 

Suzy: It's a really big book. It's just called Heaven, and he discusses all kinds of truths in there about our eternal home.

Dannah: Does he include this?

Suzy: Oh my, yes. I think he has two whole chapters on this. He's a big dog guy. 

Dannah: He has a dog? 

Suzy: He has golden retrievers, I think. Okay, I’m maybe saying that wrong, but yeah, he has really researched this topic. He's the one that has kind of dug up all these verses and has said, "Look in Scripture what God says about the animals.” 

He's refuted some things that people have said about animals. Like a lot of people say animals won't be in heaven because they don't have souls. Randy Alcorn's like, animals are not the same as humans. We're the only ones made in God's image. But the soul has long been regarded as breath that has been given by God. God is the only one who can give life, and He breathes His breath. He's the one that points out he did that for animals too.

Dannah: Yeah.

Suzy: He has really dug deep into that.

C.S. Lewis, who wrote Narnia.

Dannah: No way, The Chronicles of Narnia? The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? We’re reading that right now.

Suzy: You know, Narnia is a picture of our walk with Christ, but also the resurrected life and eternity. His animals are talking.

Dannah: And Aslan represents Jesus.

Aslan represents Jesus. So He's definitely placing animals in the kingdom.

Dannah: But that doesn't necessarily prove they'll be in heaven. 

Suzy: Right. 

Dannah: But there is some Scripture that sort of talks about them being in heaven in Isaiah, right? 

Suzy: Right.

Dannah: Let me read that. I’ve got it here in my Bible, Isaiah 11. I like to read it right from my Bible. Sometimes I like to use a Bible app or online Bible, but I really like my pages. 

Suzy: The Bible feels good in my hand. 

Dannah: This is talking about heaven. 

The cow will graze near the bear.
The cub and the calf will lie down together.
The lion will eat hay like a cow.
The baby will play safely near the hole of a cobra.
Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes without harm.
Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,
for as the waters fill the sea,
so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord. (vv. 6–9)

That's animals in heaven. 

Okay, so Randy Alcorn mentions that verse in that book.

What are some other people that we know and trust who have things about this?

Suzy: Joni Eareckson Tada.

Dannah: Oh, I love her. 

Suzy: She says: 

If God brings our pets back to life, it wouldn’t surprise me. It would be just like Him. It would be totally in keeping with His generous character. Exorbitant. Excessive. Extravagant in grace after grace. [Then she talks about her dog.] Of all the dazzling discoveries and ecstatic pleasures heaven will hold for us, the potential of seeing Scrappy would be pure whimsy.

Dannah: Oh, I love that.

Suzy: Yeah. She says that. 

John Piper, who's a very, very serious theologian. 

Dannah: He's a very serious guy. 

Suzy: But he’s also a dog guy. This was a poem that he wrote. 

And as I knelt beside the brook to drink eternal life, I took a glance across the golden grass, and saw my dog, old Blackie, fast as she could come. She leaped the stream— almost—and what a happy gleam was in her eye!

Dannah: That brings tears to my eyes. I think about how slow Moose is right now, and to imagine him fast again.

Yeah, that's really neat. I didn't think that I would cry while we're talking about this. 

Suzy: But I think that's how deeply people feel about it. 

And then if we go back in in time a bit, John Wesley is an old timer and a theologian that many of us really, really look up to. He passionately argued that animals lost so much of their glory because of man's sin. So he argued that their ability to run and jump and live much longer lives, God will restore this to them when He restores the earth,

Dannah: So cool. 

Another person that I love a lot is Elisabeth Elliot. I can't remember what exactly she said, but in one of her books, she wrote that she believed that she would probably see her dog in heaven. 

But do we really know for sure?

Suzy: We cannot know for sure. 

Dannah: It's a question without a sure answer.

Suzy: I love the proverb that says it's to God’s glory that He withholds some things from us. He does not let us know everything, and that is to His glory, because so much of His glory is yet to be revealed. And this is one of those things He's going to make us wait to find out. 

Dannah: This is one of the places where we trust God. 

So the ultimate answer is we don't know, but God does give us some things to consider, doesn't He?

Suzy: Yeah. 

Dannah: What we can know, Suzy, is that we are told to take care of our animals, like Proverbs 12:10 says:

The godly care for their animals,
but the wicked are always cruel.

So a godly person takes care of their dog, of their chameleon, of their horse. They feed them; they walk them; they care for them. And if you think about it, why do we do that?

Suzy: I think that comes back to us being image bearers of God.

Dannah: Bingo. 

Suzy: We're doing what He has modeled for us in Scripture. 

Dannah: Like, we just read a bunch of Scriptures about how He cared for the animals, like putting them in the ark. Like how He said, "Here's my promise to care for the animals, my rainbow in the sky.” 

He modeled that, and we're image bearers. Then we do it too. So we care for them.

Suzy: And we love them.

And we can actually flip this on its head one more time. So we care for our animals, but our animals care for us, don't they?

Dannah: They do. 

Suzy: There's been research that shows that animals actually experience what we would call love for us. I think there's a picture of that.

Dannah: I know exactly where Moosie is when I come home. I open the door. There's four little steps up into my living room, and he is sitting right there.

Suzy: He waits for you.

Dannah: He's been waiting for me. 

Suzy: He longs to be with you. 

Dannah: He does. 

Suzy: So, do you know what this means for us?

Dannah: Tell me.

Suzy: So, just the way that Moosie sits and waits for you. The way that my dogs sit and wait for me. The way that we sometimes see a dog sitting in a car and is just staring at the door of the grocery store that its owners went into. We also see in God's Word that we are to anticipate His return that way. We're supposed to want to be with Him that way.

Dannah: Which I guess if you think about that, at the end of the day, when we're in heaven, probably the first question we're wondering is not where is Moosie or where is Sherman? Where is Bruno? Where is whoever? Our first question is going to be, “Where is Jesus?” We're going to want to be with Him. 

Which means that all of these questions probably won't mean that much. We won't have those questions on our hearts. We can trust Him. 

Suzy: We should talk about heaven more. 

Dannah: We should. We should do a whole series on that. 

Suzy: You're gonna write it. 

Dannah: Well, sorry, True Girl, but this episode didn't have a very clear answer because we don't really know. But as you can see, we can still go to our Bibles and learn a lot of cool things about every question we have, including, "Will my dog be in heaven? 

But come back next week because we do have a very clear question and a really clear answer from Scripture. It's one of the most common questions True Girls ask, and it is this: does God still love me when I mess up? And we're not talking about like, “Oops, I spilled my ice cream on mom's white sofa.” We're talking about does God still love me when I sin? So join us next week for that one.

Claire: I really do hope my kitten, Biscuit, is in heaven. 

What a great question to consider today! 

Maybe you’ve wondered if your own dog, horse, hamster, or bearded dragon is going to be in heaven. While we can’t know that answer for certain, we can look at the Bible to think about it.

One of the things I hope you’ll discover this season is that Jesus isn’t afraid of your questions. In fact, asking honest questions is one of the ways we grow closer to Jesus. The important thing isn’t having all the answers right away. It’s knowing where to go for truth.

Sometimes the Bible gives us a clear answer. Other times, it gives us something even better—a bigger picture of who God is so we can trust Him, even when we don’t know every detail.

Today, Suzy and Dannah may not have answered every question about our pets being in heaven, but we do know this: heaven is going to be more wonderful than we can hope or imagine, because Jesus will be there! And everyone who’s trusted Him as Savior has that incredible promise to look forward to. So, we can trust God about our questions concerning heaven.

Don’t stop asking other good questions! Keep talking with your mom. Keep opening your Bible together, and keep learning more about the God who loves you.

One thing that can help you with that is the True Girl Subscription Box. We’re getting ready to ship the Pajama Party Box, which is all about choosing friends who help you follow Jesus. We hope that includes friends like Dannah and Suzy! The True Girl Subscription box always comes with sixty days of devotionals, a special mom-and-daughter date, Bible memory cards, and other fun things. 

Oh, and one more thing before you go, we would love to meet you on the True Girl Crazy Hair Tour! Every event is packed with unforgettable worship and biblical teaching so you can learn how to turn to God’s Word for all of life’s questions. Dannah’s on tour this fall with Yancy. Bring your mom, wear your craziest hair, and come make memories you’ll never forget!

You can find a True Girl Crazy Hair Tour stop near you, and you can learn more about the Pajama Party Box, at MyTrueGirl.com.

Be sure to come back next week. Dannah and Suzy are gonna talk about sin and a worry that lots of girls have. We’ll see you then!

The True Girl podcast is produced by Revive Our Hearts, calling women of all ages to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.