Everything I Know About Life I Learned From My Dog

Some of the simplest yet most profound lessons in life I have learned from Carrie. Carrie is my Latvian yellow Lab pictured on the left who came home from the mission field with me. By the way, Carrie is very intelligent and understands both English and Russian. She obeys (or ignores) commands in either language.

Anyway, next to swimming, Carrie loves nothing more than to go for a walk. She loves to explore all the sights and scents of the larger world outside our small house and yard. The two little words, "poydyom gulyat'", or "let's go for a walk," are all it takes to get paws dancing and tail wagging.

But in order to get the anticipated walk, Carrie knows that she must submit to the dreaded muzzle. She despises her muzzle, but since she has been known to bite other dogs, we don't go out without it. Still, she knows that wearing that muzzle is the key to something greater that, in her dog's world, is well worth the discomfort and confinement of it. So when I approach her with the muzzle, without prompting, she sits down and lifts her head, perfectly still and snout extended high, so that I can easily put it on her. Then without delay, off we go to explore the world (or at least the neighbors' yards).

How much easier and more joyful would our lives be if we could learn to submit to the discipline of the Lord with the same speed, willingness, and anticipation? If you have walked with God more than three days, you have undoubtedly experienced that uncomfortable confinement of God's discipline. Maybe it's that he seems slow in giving you something you desperately want or need, like a new job, a ministry you've dreamed of, a husband or wife, or children. Maybe you know you are gifted and called to a public ministry or career, and feel you should be progressing in it, and instead you seem to be going nowhere, hidden away in a place of obscurity. In situations like these, instead of quietly submitting to the yoke knowing, like Carrie does, that it will yield good things, most of us want to throw off God's loving and purposeful restraints and either press forward on our own or give up.

For those who have ears to hear, however, Hebrews 12 encourages us that the Lord disciplines those he loves and that it's proof that we are true sons and not illegitimate. It also says that he disciplines us for our certain good and that the results of it are life, sharing in his holiness, and a "harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12: 11) If we really believe this, then we can approach his discipline with faith and not just endurance, but embrace it with patient but joyful anticipation of stellar results that will benefit us and glorify the Lord through our lives. Who doesn't want that?

Even the Bible admits that "no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful." (Hebrews 12:11) Nobody knows that better than Jesus, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2) Thank God that Jesus never lost that vision of joy ahead through the toughest trial in all eternity. We have reaped the benefit of his obedience. Let's follow his example in the smaller challenges of our own lives. It will be worth it all. Just ask Carrie.