This simile will sound odd to you, but hear me out. A year ago we adopted a six year-old Jack Russel Terrier, Sophie. What a joy! Though, at first she didn’t realize she was part of our pack, so she ran out the door a few times and into the street and onto neighbor’s property. Well, the electric fence we purchased stopped that. Was she suddenly obedient? YES. But only because she didn’t like what happened when she got close to those little white flags.
Well a year has gone by and she definitely feels part of our pack. She obeys us as we feed her, call to her and as we open the door and walk outside first. But is that obedience from the heart? Again, I think not. She is trying to please us and knows those are the rules in our pack.
Today she caught a snake, again. Did I tell you she loves to hunt and specifically loves to catch snakes? Last fall she caught about a dozen snakes before cold weather kicked in. Well, I had no idea there were snakes on our property. And let me tell you, it didn’t make me happy knowing it. I wear shoes when I got outside now! In the spring she caught a few more and then . . . a copperhead. Yes, she killed the copperhead, but the snakes last act was to bite Sophie. Scary, but not fatal for dogs as long as they are taken care of. Perhaps I’ll blog about that incident, it was exciting after the fact. But I digress. I needed to tell you how much she loves to catch snakes. Some would say it is her gift. I’ve never seen a dog happier than Sophie is when she’s outside hunting. And the moment she catches a snake I can tell she is in her element.
What do I do when she catches a snake? Other than scream and run away? Well, I try to get her to drop it, but how can she drop her prized possession? Catching snakes is her gift. But today we hit a turning point. She caught a snake and promptly ran to the front door, that was thankfully closed. I called her back to the driveway and told her to drop it. Of course, I didn’t think it would work. After a year of living with her, I’d seen her passion, her love of snakes. Well, today she dropped the snake at my feet! Yes, she picked it back up and didn’t leave it until the third drop. But she went inside with me because that’s what I told her to do. She left her treasured snake on the driveway where she knows we will dispose of it. Because I told her to.
Obedience. Not because she wanted to obey, but because she wanted to please me more than herself. I can learn a lesson from this and I hope you can as well. We can obey God when it’s easy to obey Him. When we know what he is asking of us and it’s what we want to do anyway. But the times we are truly tested are the times when God asks something of us that we don’t want to do. I don’t mean selling all your possessions, or moving to a foreign country to be a missionary. No, not the big things. Let’s start with the little things. The day to day things. What is it that God wants you to do that you don’t WANT to do?