Teachable or Our Own Thing

Back in the Ice Age when I was employed as a teacher, I was always looking for that "Teachable Moment".  That time, in class, when something comes up for discussion, incidentally, that is actually pertinent to our learning.  Most days it did not appear.  Sometimes, it was like pulling teeth to try to teach anything. Something happened this morning that was a "Teachable Moment" for me.

While I was waiting to go to Mayo for my surgical procedure, I was enjoying the beautiful view from our balcony outside the spacious room.  The waves were lazily rolling in, touching the sand, and rolling right out again.  A man and his dog were on the beach.  Periodically the man would stoop, pick up something, throw it with some sort of "flinging" thing, similar to the jai lai basket, and the dog would run down the beach,  catching the item in his mouth or retrieving it from the water.  Enjoying the moment, the dog would run into the next wave, do a happy dance in the water; eventually even laying down in the coolness; almost totally ignoring the man.

The man would call to the dog, the dog would look in the other direction, momentarily, then reluctantly pull himself up from the water, ever so slowly walk toward the man, tail and ears hung.  As another dog approached, he was chained; dropping to the sand, the dog would roll back and forth as he was having a rapid back massage.  He had given up.

The antics of the animal did not stop the man from his "thing" of exercising - stretching, bending, and contorting his body in stretches.  With the chaining of the dog, the man proceeded to put the animal through a seemingly known set of obedience tricks - shake, roll over, etc.  With some hesitation, the dog slowly obeyed.

Isn't this a good analogy of God with us?  God sends us something to do, but we want to play in the nice, cool, comfortable water of our lives.  He calls; we reluctantly head back toward Him, distracted by most any thing.  He sends us again, we hesitate.  We want to stay in the nice cool, water of doing our thing. He coaxes us; He offers comfort, but we want to wallow in the laziness of our own disobedience.  Eventually, we have to be "reeled" in; possibly our chain even needs to be "pulled" to help us realize we are somewhere in an area that is not right for us; we are not doing His will.

I want to obey, yet I really like the comfort of my own decisions.  I pull away at times; do my happy dance of selfishness, and show my reluctance of obedience.  Eventually, I turn back to God.  I am so glad God knows my heart and patiently forgives and calls again.