Imagine a small, cute lamb bleating in a field. A man walks up and with a swift motion breaks its leg. Does that anger you? Sadden you? Are you now placing a call to PETA?
In Biblical times when a lamb would wander off and get lost, the shepherd would often break its leg and then carry it on his shoulders until it healed. This taught the sheep to be completely reliant on the shepherd. From then on it would not wander off and knew that the shepherd was its source of food, care, and protection.
I was jogging the other day and this little dog started chasing me, barking furiously. He seemed pretty young with short brown hair from head to paw. I figured he would soon stop, but he didn’t. He kept sprinting after me all the way down the street getting closer and closer, several times almost getting tangled up or stomped on by my big feet.
This is very much what he looked like and the caption for this pic I found read, "small dog barks at sky"! How perfect!
When the block ended, I stopped because I didn’t want him chasing me across the street. Once he gets in the street, he could easily get hit by a car. Our neighborhood, sadly, has been a battlefield of fallen road kill.
“Go home!”, I commanded. He kept barking. “Go! Go home, go home!” I vigorously pointed and stomped my foot. Alas, he didn’t. I jogged back to the general area where he started following me. “Which one’s your home, boy?”, I asked as if he was really going to show me. I noticed two elderly gentlemen up the street admiring the paint job on a ’60’s VW bug. It was a beautiful, shiny midnight blue.
“Excuse me. Is this your dog?”, I queried as the puppy continued to bark at my feet.
The older of the two men gave a toothless laugh, “Haha, no. He belongs to that house up there with the pink trim. He’s always getting out.”
After thanking them, I went to the house. The screen door was closed but the main door was open. I could hear the whirring of a fan and could see one of the vertical blinds moving back and forth to the rhythm of the air being blown. The screen door was in rough shape and the deadbolt was completely missing. I could have easily walked right in, but two things stopped me: I don’t want to get shot and there was the very strong and distinct smell of marijuana emanating from inside.
“Hello? Anyone home?” I knocked as the canine relentlessly yapped behind me. No answer.
“I could maybe push the dog inside,” I thought, but then I had a flashback to when I was in middle school and the neighbor’s dog got out of the backyard. When I tried to encourage it back, it suddenly and ferociously bit me. I still have the scar. Now thinking about it, I’ve had a lot of run ins with dogs of all types, but I’ll save those for another story.
I jogged away muttering something like, “Stupid potheads, going to get their dog killed,” while the little stinker was still hot on my heels.
What to do? “I could kick him,” I thought. Maybe that would be enough to scare him home. It’d be better than getting hit by a car, wouldn’t it?
As I pondered this dilemma, these two stories made me think of a deeper life implication. I have a dear friend who recently was extremely hurt by someone, emotionally and financially. What lead up to this was a series of choices which my friend knows I would have counseled against. My friend is a Christian and not only does my friend know that I would have said to make a different choice, my friend knows that God would have advised the opposite direction as well.
I’m not saying this to say I’m so much wiser than my friend, I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes. It is just frustrating when you see someone you greatly love get hurt by poor choices that they have made. Nor am I implying that God “broke my friend’s leg”. I’m very much against blaming God for the consequences of our actions.
What I’m saying is that times that we are broken and we get hurt should be times that we turn to God and put our reliance, faith, and obedience in Him. Just like the good shepherd, He knows what we need better than we do ourselves even when we wander away or wander out into the street and need a good smack down. It’s not all smiles and rainbows. God uses pain to draw us near to Him, which we should do instead of cursing our circumstances and cursing God, even if, at the very least, we run to Him for comfort after being hit by a car. Have you allowed Him to be the good shepherd of your life?
Now, I know most of you are wondering, did I end up kicking the dog? I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He chased me across the street and I sped up as fast as I could until he finally got tired and stopped. This morning, though, I went jogging and didn’t see him. Maybe I should have kicked him…