"Follow!"

Liam is pretty much the best dog ever. :0) (Though he makes it very difficult to take his picture as he'd much rather eat the camera!) He loves to play and is very obedient. He loves to sing too! In fact, if you want to torture him, give him his dinner and then start to sing - he doesn't know what to do!!

Anyway, the purpose of this blog is not to brag about our dog, believe it or not. ;0) We've noticed some strange behavior . . .
. . . resulting from what appears to be fear. There are certain places that he won't "come!" . . . . unless, of course, he's chasing a squirell.  A few weeks ago he loved to go check on the chickens with me. He'd even run ahead of me . . . but not now. It seems like a little fear got in (not sure from where) and then it grew. If I start to walk off towards the pumphouse, he'll run to the front door and beg to be let inside. If you let him in, then he'll run and hide in his kennel. Nothing you say will stop him.

I got to be home alone a few days this week, so I decided to not let Liam off the hook so easy. A few times he ran back to the house and I went and brought him back to where we were. I pretty much had to hold him by the collar. We'd finish up at the chickens and then he'd take off again ahead of me as we were walking back, so for a while I even held him by the collar as we walked back up.

I'm not sure why, but Daddy trained Liam with the command "follow" instead of "heel". I like it. So each time I was walking with Liam and holding his collar, I was repeating the command "follow". He knows the command very well, but I just wanted to remind him that that was all I wanted him to do, follow me, stay close by my side, he had nothing to fear.

I know that the Christian life is much more than just "following" Jesus since He lives inside of us, but I thought this was a good illustration. How many times does fear interfere with what God wants me to do? And all He wants is for me to stay close by His side. I don't need to look where I'm going, just keep my eyes on Him.

The good news is that Liam is getting better. One day I had to go to the back forty (my brother asked me to do him a favor). Liam saw I was headed towards the pumphouse and he stayed. But then as I got past the pumphouse, almost to the gate of our deer fence, he appeared! I called to him, and after a little hesitation, he came! He actually went with me for a long ways, till I lost the trail and had to backtrack. Then he was off and there was no stopping him. Since then I learned that if I tell him to "sit" as he's running back, he will stop and sit. (It looks really funny cause you can see that he's scared, but he obeys anyway.) Today he walked with me to cut clover for the chickens and then over to feed them and back up to the house, without me having to hold his collar - just telling him to "follow". Yay!! :0)

hmmm . . . maybe we are learning together to walk by faith. :0)