Smarter than My Dog?

And you, O Bethlehem . . . from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Matthew 2:6

Our dog is pretty smart . . . for a dog. He learns quickly, and we have to spell certain words – like “walk” – if we don’t want him to hear. For the most part, he obeys any command he understands. I can’t imagine what he thinks of our rules though. I doubt he grasps why we wipe his feet off after he’s been out in the mud. He has no idea why we’ve made him learn to go to the bathroom outdoors. I don’t know if he’s capable of asking “why?”, or if he gets frustrated with our commands, but he does follow them.

Compared to us of course, he’s a complete idiot. He eats the most disgusting things you can imagine, and he’s terrified of the vacuum. We may not be geniuses, but we’re almost immeasurably above and beyond him in our intelligence. We’re people and he’s a dog.

This is akin to the analogy God used to describe our relationship to Christ, in today’s passage. Quoting the Old Testament (Micah 5:4), Matthew said that Jesus will be a shepherd to God’s people. That makes us the sheep.

This may seem condescending, comparing us to livestock, but I’d be willing to bet that as far as my intelligence is beyond my dog, God is that much further beyond me. The biggest difference between my dog and me, honestly, is probably that my dog obeys better than I do.

I’ve question God. I’ve doubted that he has my best interests in mind. I’ve refused to follow, instead doing whatever I’ve wanted. Even though I knew the disastrous consequences of using drugs, I followed my appetite to destruction. I may think myself smarter than my dog, but frankly, he’s more obedient.

We may find the shepherd/sheep analogy offensive, but if we truly desire faith, life, and recovery, we must embrace the humility and obedience of being sheep to Christ, our shepherd. Those of us who’ve followed ourselves into the disaster of our addictions must be honest enough to admit what a mess life has been when we’ve gone our way. If we desire to know the life and peace that Christ intends for is, we could take a few lessons from the dog, and simply follow the master.