Lesson From Dog

So I have a dog. Like a giant dog. She is a Newfoundland and is 115lbs of fluff. Heavy, hot, fluff. I live in Ohio and although there is no beach in sight, we’ve been having some super tropical days around here with temperatures in the 90’s and straight humidity. As you could imagine, my fluff bear wasn’t built for this, but she gets all depressed if she doesn’t get out to smell all of the neighborhood things each day, so even when it reads 92 degrees, we leash up and go. For my own sanity, I try to mix up our walks, like hit up some parks or go different directions around the neighborhood.  Each day it may look different, but in my mind I always have our route mapped out so that it’s not too far for her, yet just challenging enough that she gets her exercise. We were out walking the other day when I was struck with the thought- since I don’t speak dog, my doggo has no way of knowing when we’re running down the street if we’re just doing a loop around the hood or a 3 miler... she doesn’t get to know how she should pace herself, or when we’re half way, or how much longer. Yet she always trusts me. She just trusts that I’m not going to take her farther than she can go, I’m going to make sure she gets water if needed, and I’m always going to bring her back to the air conditioning. Boom. God moment. Oh the things we can learn from dogs. So I was walking along thinking about how this would be a great reflection- “Lesson from dog: God won’t ever give you more than you can handle if you trust Him”-  and so I get home and go online to look up good scripture to support this and wouldn’t you know… I actually found the exact opposite… there was article after article titled something to the effect of “ways Bible shows that God actually does give us more than we can handle.” Silly me.

Turns out it’s true- the Bible shows us story after story of people who were given too much, who were asked to do things too great, who were pushed too far and given burdens too heavy... too heavy and too far to go alone that is. And that’s the exact point God is trying to teach us when He gives us more than we alone can handle... that we were not created to handle the load alone. We were wholly made to need God. We He gives us more than we can handle it’s to teach us that we need to surrender to Him. In fact, if we try to go it alone, the burdens of life will crush us. But this is not how we were designed.

I don’t know if God is taking you on a nice autumn stroll right now or a sprint through the heat and humidity; I do know that He will challenge you, but He won’t forget to pack water and He won’t ever expect you to go it on your own. What would your life look like if you folded your hand- if you threw your hands up in the air and said, I’m done! I can’t do it. I give this ENTIRELY to God to carry for me... He will take your load and who knows, He just may pick you up right along with it and carry you back to the air conditioning.