Come, Follow Me

Sparrow is my dog.  She was bought with a price from the breeder and given to me as a birthday present six years ago.  On that day she was a little 3 pound beagle puppy and one look into those big brown eyes and I was in love.

I started training her right away.  I am her Master and I expect her to follow me.  When I take her outside she sometimes wants to go her own way, usually trying to smell something interesting she has passed, but I want her to go my way.  A tug on the leash will usually remind her we are going my way, not hers. When Sparrow persists in trying to go her own way I find it very frustrating. . .she grieves me.

"What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20

We have been bought with a price as well and we are no longer our own.  Our Master is no cruel task-master, but a loving and tender Lord whose "burden is easy and His yoke light".

  He too wants us to follow Him, to seek His leading and follow His will for our lives.  If we choose to seek our own way instead, we grieve His heart.

One of my favorite things to do is to play with, walk with and love on my sweet beagle Sparrow.  I love her and she loves me.  It is a mutual relationship.  I have tried to be a kind Master and she, most of the time, follows my lead.  Isn't that a beautiful picture of our relationship with the Lord?  I think He allows us plenty of "leash" to smell the interesting things along the way, but He clearly has a path and a plan for each of us and He wants us to find and follow that path.  We we persist in going the opposite way, sometimes He tugs on our leash to remind us that He is the Master.

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me:  

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, 

neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." 

John 10:27,28