The Leash Broke

So, Suzi broke her leash couple days ago.  Yep, totally snapped at the cord.  Just saw the tension, and snap!  And as expected she took off!  And her target was a group of fishermen at the Glendale Spillway.  She rushed over to them; took a perch they just caught and ate it.  Luckily, they were nice and in good spirit.  They didn’t mind that Suzie just stole one of their catches.  But all is good because I eventually caught a nice 12-inch perch and donated it to them. 

But other than Suzie running off and stealing a fish, she was surprisingly well behaved when she was off her leash.  She stayed relatively close to me, and she always came near me when I called her name.  She of course was interested in other people, which I had little control over, but she was polite.  Didn’t jump up and act like a maniac.  She even got a little bit of leftover pizza crust from the nice fellas. 

But I really was in a bit of a panic when Suzie broke her leash!  I expected that she would just run off and I’d spend half of the day chasing after her and even I dreaded that she would be off, and I would lose her! 

I learned two things.  I am not quite ready to have her off the leash, even if she is ready.  And also, I need to trust her a little more than I had before.  I definitely underestimated her ability, awareness, attentiveness, and obedience. 

But aren’t we sort of like that when it comes to our relationship with God?  I mean, God just allows our faith to grow.  And maybe when we were younger, God had us on the leash, making sure we don’t wander off too far.  God provided us with a mom and dad that’s responsibility is to know from right and wrong.  God gives us the opportunity to get into a church in hope that we understand important words like, grace, hope, forgiveness, and love.  And as we get older, the hope is that not only does our leash get longer, but eventually, we will be off our leash.  We have the freedom of doing what we feel is best in life. 

Now when we are off the leash we are exposed to the world, which isn’t such a bad thing.  We learn a ton of stuff from other friends, observe other peers, and dig our noses into the education that is provided from us.  Through all the unleashed world will provide we make the decision on what to do next, what to believe, and how to behave.  We will find out or have already found out that we don’t always make the best decision.  Yes, sometimes we steal another person’s fish! 

But honestly, we need to be off the leash, or maybe even break our leash in order for our faith to grow and strengthen.  It is only through the full experience of life and the freedom of living that our faith becomes more and more solid.  It is about making mistakes and learning.  It is also bout trust.

Like I said earlier before in this blog, I am not quite ready to have Suzie off the leash completely.  She still has a lot to mature.  But I know she is getting there.  However, God is very much comfortable with having us off our leash because God completely trusts us!

Maybe that is hard to believe, but it is true!  God trusts us to make the better choices, God trusts us to live well and responsibly.  God trusts us to be charitable, loving, kind, and forgiving to all the people we may meet.  God even trusts us not to take another person’s fish!

But God also understands that we will make mistakes in life, and we will make mistakes often.  That will not change His love or trust in us.  However, because we have a strong foundation with Him, because we were “trained” earlier when we were on a leash, we still must stay close to Him.  He knows that we will not drift too far off.  Even when we are off the leash, we still need God to take care of us, feed us, give us a home, and give us encouragement.  

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