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Lessons from walking a little dog

 Recently I've been taking a little dog for a walk each morning.  He's not mine but I enjoy doing this without the full responsibility of owning a dog. I've learnt many lessons from these walks and I want to share them with you.

First of all this little dog needs to be on a lead. This is really for his safety.  Of course I would not be happy if he ran away and so I keep him on a lead.  He pulls against the lead, but if he would just stay in step with me he would not even know that the lead was there.  He would be free.  It seems to me that this is how we are in relation to God.  He puts us on a lead, his commandments and if we keep them we are free, our lives work perfectly,  but just like that little dog we pull away. It is in our very nature to want to break the rules.  If there is a sign saying "Keep off the grass!" What do we want to do? We want to walk on it.  If we see a sign saying, "Wet paint!" we want to touch it. It is easier to train a little dog to walk to heel than it is to convince a person to keep God's laws. Over the last century and into this the general idea in society has been that rules don't matter, you can do as you please.  This has led to chaos and misery. Suddenly with coronavirus we are surrounded by rules and I think some people are beginning to feel safer because of this framework.  There is no safety where, "anything goes." However rules are not the whole answer.  They would be if we could keep them, but we can't, well not perfectly and God requires perfection. Just as I pull the little dog back to me, so God continually pulls us back to Him.  In the end it is only by grace that we are accepted, only through Jesus.

There are many more lessons to learn from this little dog, so come again and learn with me.

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