Again and again in the Bible we are told that we are like sheep going astray and I do not try to correct this image--but somehow I think that we are also a great deal like stubborn puppies.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are Honduran dogs, born and raised here, three brothers as different in personaliity as they are in color. For at least three months they have been at IBC in an environment of doggy heaven--food, love, walks--and yet, just as we have the effects of sin still in our physical bodies, these puppies are products of their environment. They constantly fight among themselves, they strongly dislike children and cars and bicycles, they destroy chew up anything that is left within their reach.
As I look at them, I see how much they have grown. They are learning to stay in the areas that are theirs. They are learning not to chase cars. They have learned that they can't accompany anyone in a skirt or dress pants. And they are learning to come a whistle.
In Jeremiah 10:8 God says that He will whistle and that His people will come running. And yet I I am amazed at how we, like these puppies, are constantly distracted--by a donkey in the pasture, a rock rolling down the hill, a mound of cow manure. Do they want to obey? Do we want to obey? Well, maybe here is where the metaphor breaks down. Perhaps they don't. But whether their training tells them to come or not, or whether we want to heed the gentle voice of our master or not, there is always the deeper instinct telling us to return to our "doghood" and to our "vomit."
"Who shall free us from this body of death?" Who can overcome battles with temperance, with low self-esteem, with selfishness? "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord," we are not left as wretched puppies, eating the hides and guts of a butchered steer. We are children of the King, through His strength set free from the law of sin and death.
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