Walk with me

I enjoy very much my walks with my dog after a long day of teaching. He is so excited to see me when I get home, whining and following me around the house until I’m changed and ready to go. Sometimes I play or run with him, but usually he’s content to just walk and mostly do his own thing as long as I’m not too far away. If I change direction during the walk, I give him a quick signal and he jumps to obey, running ahead on the new path.

Is that something like how youth would act if we really spent time with them in relationships? Is that how I should respond to the direction that God is giving me from His Word? Of course this is a loose illustration, but what if I could learn something from this?

Talking with the Spanish teacher the other day, he noted that his students made critiques on an assigned reading but never actually read the whole thing. They would make a note from the first sentence of a paragraph, thinking that the author would continue in one direction, but because they never bothered to finish, they didn’t know that he went another direction entirely. Do students want to learn or are they just doing the minimum amount to complete the assignment?

Monitoring a study hall today, I see that some students are working on a study of the book of Acts. Their interest is much more centered on what they will be wearing to the next social event or on the scores of yesterday’s soccer matches. Is there any application to the events of the 1st Century A.D. in our appearance or our daily activities? Should we be getting clues as to how to behave and what to think about from somewhere or Someone?

Excuse me for a few minutes – I think I hear Someone calling me for my daily walk…