I’ve mentioned Dixie in a previous post about losing weight. While my dog, a German shepherd husky mix, may seem to have little to do with my three major blogging topics-men’s team ministry to the widowed and single parents, men’s ministry in general, and the pressing needs around us-the spiritual lessons Dixie teaches do. (I know, this may be a stretch, but I love telling people about my dog. Bear with me.)
And yes, animals do teach spiritual lessons. The Bible uses many animals, such as birds, pigs, sheep, goats, snakes, fish, whales and dogs, to teach all kinds of lessons.
Dixie is a Colorado Cell Dog, a proud graduate of Colorado Correctional Industries’ prison trained dogs program. After a bad experience with a regular rescue dog, Patti and I decided we’d get one through this resource.
The program lists available dogs online. You select a couple of canines you think you may be interested in, then visit the prison to see them in person. If one of them meets with your approval, you then leave the dog at the prison for six weeks to be trained to your specifications by a prisoner. Six weeks later you return to the prison and pick it up.
And voila! You have a perfect dog.
You can ask the prisoner who trains your dog to teach it anything you want. Fetch the paper? You bet. Get your slippers? No problem. We stuck with the basics: house trained, sit, lay down, heel, no barking, say hello. (Dixie is also excellent at climbing fences and digging under them. Hmm.)
Here are some of the spiritual lessons I think Dixie best exemplifies.
Dixie picked us when we picked her. I’m not going to tie your brain into a pretzel with a discussion on predestination and free will, a problem that cannot be completely resolved in this life. But our first meeting with Dixie was pretty special. Patti and I immediately fell in love with her. And it was clear that she loved us too. We decided right then and there that she was the one for us.
In the same way God, while not choosing us because of any special qualities on our part, did choose us because he’s giddy in love with us. “In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will,” (Ephesians 1:5). And we, having been saved by grace through faith, respond to that love by loving God back. “We love Him because He first loved us,” (1 John 4:19).
Dixie has been redeemed from prison. We had to purchase Dixie and then go through no less than six prison gates to get her. For a while, we ourselves were prisoners with her. Then we took her out of the prison, never to return.
Like Dixie, you and I have been purchased with a price, “the precious blood of Christ.” God entered this world for a brief moment in time to pay that price and rescue us from Satan’s grip. We will never again be Satan’s slave. The guilt of sin has been removed and we have been set free.
Dixie was trained before she came to live in our home. Dixie’s six week course was a strenuous process that involved food rewards when she obeyed and being sprayed with vinegar water and given shouts of “No!”s when she disobeyed.
We also are being trained to live in our Father’s home. Sometimes the training process is enjoyable. But other times not so much. In fact, sometimes it seems like God hates us. “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined –and everyone undergoes discipline– then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all,” (Hebrews 12:7-8).
Dixie knows who’s boss. We don’t allow Dixie to eat until after we eat. Early in the morning, she can tell if I’m going to eat breakfast at home or if I’m heading straight out the door to eat at McDonalds. If I’m going to McDonalds, she accompanies me to the door that leads to the garage because she knows that before I drive off to MickyD’s I’m going to feed her out of the dog food container we store there.
If she realizes I’m going to eat breakfast at home, she quietly goes in the other room, lays down and waits until she hears me take my last sip of coffee and wipe my mouth with my napkin. Then she starts bugging me to feed her.
In the same way, while Jesus is our friend, he is also our Lord and Master. “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty,'” (Luke 17:10).
The closer Dixie walks with me, the more freedom she has. I walk Dixie daily. Sometimes I walk her off leash. But I can only do this in very familiar places where there is no street traffic. When I walk Dixie off leash on these well known paths, she meanders around, but never goes far from me. Unfortunately, when I’m in unfamiliar places, she tends to get distracted and begins to wander too far away. If she would only pay me more attention, she would have more off leash time.
It’s counter intuitive, but like Dixie, the more we obey God-the more we learn to do what is pleasing to God-the more freedom we have.
Dixie has no idea how much we love her. She can’t even think in that category. But Dixie does have a vague sense that she is something special to us. She knows we will never purposefully harm her. She proves this daily by laying on her side in the middle of the kitchen floor, forcing us to dance around her and step over her as we cook and eat. We come within centimeters of stepping on her, but she doesn’t have a care in the world because she knows we care for her.
But while the intellectual and emotional distance between us and Dixie is great, the intellectual and emotional distance between us and God is infinitely greater. God must look at us and think something similar to: “You have no idea how much I love you.” Indeed, Scripture says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him,” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Dixie has a sinful squirrel nature. For all her training, Dixie still has moments when she backslides. If she sees a squirrel (or a rabbit for that matter), it’s as if she’s never lived a second in civilization. Suddenly, all of her animal instincts take over and off she goes on a tear.
While Dixie’s “sinful squirrel nature” is just an analogy, we Christians do have a genuine sinful nature. It has not been redeemed. It never gets better. And it will never go away until the day we die or Christ comes to take us home. But we can increasingly overcome it by walking in the Spirit and not “sowing to the flesh.”
Dixie is just an animal, but I am not. I know a Christian philosopher who has argued that some dogs will indeed go to heaven. But I don’t find the idea very convincing. Dixie is just an animal. She hasn’t been created in God’s image. She has no soul. She will die and that will be it.
I, on the other hand, do have a soul. I will die, but my soul will survive. And because I have trusted Jesus Christ as my savior, I will live with him forever. Because when I see Him, I will be like him, (1 John 3:2).
And voila! I will be perfect.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
How about you? Have you placed your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save you?
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