Things I’ve learned from my dog…

That sounds like a very odd post name… but never mind.

This is my dog, Annie. She is a big Lab/something mix (we’re not sure what else she is.). We used to have a beautiful Golden Retriever dog named Molly, but a few years ago we had to put her down. I was so sad for such a long time, because I love, love, LOVE dogs! But then, last summer, we got Annie, and practically haven’t had a dull moment since! She is a highly energized, codependent, fun-loving dog who keeps us on our toes—sometimes even in the middle of the night!

But she has made me realize so many things. Our previous dog had been a beautiful dog—and she knew it. She would never get into any unnecessary excitement if she could avoid it. But Annie will get into whatever excitement she can. And one thing that I’ve realized from her is that I don’t take enough chances. In the summer time, Annie loves to hunt. She will hunt anything that moves on the ground and that is reasonably small, but mainly she hunts lizards, the poor things! But she would do anything to get at one of those things! Sometimes the lizards would go into prickly bushes or sticker bushes or even into cactus, but that wouldn’t stop her. She would pounce right into it! And only when we got her out of it, would she show her pain. She is truly amazing, and physically brave.

There are more things that I could say—countless things. Like the fact that right now she has her foot all bandaged up because of a nasty cut she got, but she doesn’t let it stop her from playing around, exploring, hunting and anything else that might take her fancy. She is not a lazy dog. And I can learn so much from her. Like one of her more irritating traits is when she gets all depressed when we are all from home. I hate that normally, but actually it’s the sort of thing I should be doing when I’m not talking to God. I should be longing for His company, and pining for His refuge, and not be satisfied until I am once more in His safe arms again. And I should be like Annie when she goes fearlessly into danger all for the love of her fellow hunter and for the hunt. I should be like that, fearlessly stepping into dangerous situations, just because God asks me to, and just because I love to do it and I love the person I’m helping.

I think I can learn a lot from my dog, and I hope you too can look around you and find ways you can learn from nature, or from books or from the people you know or work with. God put us on this earth so that we could be His, and so that we can be more like Him, and for that, we need to learn more. And Jesus took examples from nature too, talking about the fig tree, the mustard seed, and how we are like sheep among wolves. We can learn from these things, and if we couldn’t, God wouldn’t have put them there. So I say, look for something today, try to apply it, and find out what comes of it! And I would love to hear what wisdom God can show you through unusual means!

 

Shalom