Puppy Training and Parenting

Now that I am a proud dog owner, I'm learning that dogs are like people. They have personalities. They have likes and dislikes. They play. They pout. They run, jump and talk. I can't understand what they say, but they talk. This is just my children! The dog is like that too. (OK! Bad joke!!!!!) Dogs and people do have similarities though, but there is one major difference. Dogs aren't people.

We read in Genesis that God breathed life into Adam and he became a living soul. This distinction separates humanity from all plant and animal life. We are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God and nothing else in creation bears that distinction. Since we as people are endowed with the capacity to think and reason and ultimately know God, we are responsible for teaching others what we have learned. Here is the link between parenting and puppy training. In the same way that God has demonstrated patience with us when we have failed or rebelled, we must do the same in the lives of our children. We write into them lessons and operating systems that will hopefully point them toward God and help them live meaningful lives. This requires patience, repetition, patience, repetition, patience, repetition, patience, repetition, etc.... Aren't you glad that God is a patient God? If not, he would have zapped you long ago! :)

The Preacher, His Family and a Deacon

I thought you might like to see the family and the new dog - Deacon Winstonias Watertrodder. If the deacon didn't have black hair he would probably look like one of my curly-haired children. In the back is momma and Joshua, followed by Noah (the toothless wonder) David and J.J. The balck fur ball is Deacon.

The website promised that dog ownership would lower my stress level. Can I tell you something....Don't believe everything you read on the internet.........

Responsibility and Little Boys

Some things in life are like magnets to little boys. Mud puddles, puppies; snakes; frogs; chocolate; and the like function as a magnet to a little boy's insides. These things pull the child to them as though some unseen force were at work. One man I know said that a little boy could be walking straight as an arrow until he comes near a mud puddle, then he curves. In the same way that these things and other things like them pull a little boy toward them, there are other things that push away little boys just the same sides of magnets push away. Clean; cleaning; bath-time; brushing teeth; homework; listening / obeying; and responsibility and the like.

What I've noticed in my children and lived out in my life is that each person is unique and uniquely selfish. We all enjoy doing what we want to do and therefore do what we want a great deal of the time. We do not enjoy doing certain things and therefore we do not do those things as much as is possible. RESPONSIBILITY is one of those things that naturally pushes against us and causes us to do those things we do not necessarily enjoy. RESPONSIBILITY is a learned behavior, that for the christian, is supernaturally enabled by the Holy Spirit.

As we learn RESPONSIBILITY and the benefit that comes from it, we discover that great blessing comes from meaningful work. Work is a good thing that, like everything else, was marred in the fall of man and the subsequent curse. As we work we earn a living that can be used to bless others. Paul said in II Corinthians 9 that you give out of what you have. You can't give something you don't have to give. Responsibility is the safety belt that teaches us how to manage our resources in such a way that God is honored and others are edified. Perhaps the reason for much of our cultural woe is that we have many people who have never learned responsibility...