Don’t Doddle, be Led

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Selected portions of versus from Psalm 23: “²…he leads me beside quiet waters, ³…he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. ⁵You prepare a table before me…”

He leads – it is up to me to follow.

He guides – it is up to me to listen to his directions.

He prepares – it is up to me to sit down and eat.

Oliver, our most outstanding Labradoodle companion, and I walk between three and five times a week from two to four miles  at each outing depending on the route and the route depending on the day of the week and my to-do list.

For much of the time I lead Ollie on-leash. Company policy, as I think of it, requires that I keep him on leash in parks proper. On the various trails we walk that are found branching out of parks and off mainstream walkways I take him off leash as long as I am reasonably sure others aren’t nearby on the trail. If he is off leash and someone comes around he goes back on leash until we are clear again.

I keep Ollie on leash when we encounter people, with or without dogs, mainly so that I can control the encounter until I’m sure of the person and their dog. Unruly dogs we ignore. Mostly we see good people who have good dogs. There are some other reasons you might observe him on-leash and out on a trail and I’ll cover those in a bit.

Since these walks are more about getting Ollie out than me exercise I make sure to let him do dog stuff. This means that while he’s on-leash I end up with an interval workout – ten steps, stop, sniff, mark - move on. Once off his leash, he gets to stop as long as he wants while I keep moving, then sprints to catch up.

Now, once in a while he’ll get off trail. It happens and I’m not too upset unless when I call him back he doddles. Doddling doodles can be irritating. If it gets serious enough he goes back onto the leash and we walk for a little bit, no dog stops included until I feel he’s learned and then he gets off leash again as long as the coast is clear.

I have to admit, and hate doing so, but Ollie is better at this with me than I am with Jesus. I doddle. I go up a wrong path and take my own sweet time getting back on the trail where he is leading. Because Jesus is who he is and operates the way he does, it’s up to me to get back on the trail, he doesn’t clip a lead to my collar, though at times it may feel that way.

He guides me on the path of righteousness for his name’s sake. He is generally pretty quiet about it, but of late, let’s say over the last several months, he’s been rather intrusive about it and his guidance has me into things I wanted nothing to do with. I’m still straining at the leash to stop and diddle around or go my own way and it’s making the walk along the path I know to be of his choosing an unpleasant one. I fear that I won’t get to the place that it will all be for his righteousness sake. Grace here is a heavy requirement.

Sometimes I don’t feel like sitting down to eat when and where the table’s been prepared for me. There are people there and some of them are difficult to eat with. There is food there that is tough to swallow for a guy that likes fast food and copious amounts of chocolate. It’s a banquet table and requires certain manners and customs to be observed when I’d rather bolt down the food and be on my way when I’d be better off digesting the whole experience.

It is always up to us. You know, free will and all that stuff? We must make the choice to be lead, to follow our guide, and to sit and eat with our Host. Jesus would rather we do these things out of an abiding love for him rather than out of fear of reprisal.

So, let us be led by Jesus and walk alongside our Guide to sit at the banquet table with him and fill ourselves with a heavenly feast.

In His grip,

jerry