Joyful Transformation

My son’s dog Skeeter has gone missing. This dog looks mean, he is a Pit Bull, but in reality he is a big sweet puppy. There are two problems, one he has never been out of the yard on his own; the second is he doesn’t trust people he doesn’t know. When someone approaches him, he runs. I am thinking he does not have a good sense of direction since he has never had to navigate without a leash. I sure hope they find him soon. He has been gone since Tuesday afternoon and we all miss him terribly.

I was thinking (you knew this was coming, right?) that we are sometimes like that dog. Many of us have grown up in a sheltered environment. We have been told where to go and how to think. In our minds we can think freely and make our own choices. But when it comes right down to it, without the leash we have always worn (our “doctrine”) we get somewhat lost and confused. Just like Skeeter, we were not created to be “penned up”. When we are it robs us of many of our coping and survival skills. Sometimes the hardest thing we will ever have to do is just break out of the pen and run. Things will get scary and we will get hungry and thirsty. We know that there is a soft bed and bowl of food waiting for us and we are tempted to just find our way back and try to be satisfied with the comforts of home (the familiar). But deep down we know that once we taste the freedom, the sheer exhilaration of running unfettered, we will never be happy inside that fence again.

Like I said, it is scary.