October is here and with it the Cardinals are headed to the playoffs! It has been awhile but here we go again, another fall where baseball continues in this town. We at Zion are continuing our Connect every Sunday. I hope if you have never been to one you will consider staying some Sunday after the service. I know it will bless you to hang out with your family.
Hanging out with each other is important for us. It helps us with our spiritual growth as well as or walk with Jesus. Speaking of walking with Jesus, I now have another partner that I have the joy of walking with every day as well. His name is Hobbes and he is an American Bulldog puppy. I must say that at 13 weeks of age his opinion of himself is quite high! He seems to think that he knows the downtown area of St. Louis much better than I do. After all, I have only lived in downtown for 7 years and he has only been in this world for 13 weeks!
Yet, when we walk together, the on lookers would wonder who is leading whom. I have a lead on him and when I turn right he wants to go left, and if I turn left, you got it, he wants to go right. Sometimes he even sits down right in the middle of the sidewalk refusing to even head straight ahead. Needless to say our walk to the city park just three blocks away from where I live takes a very long time to get there and back. I swear I am going to start packing a lunch when I leave to walk him to the park. I cannot help but see myself in Hobbes. I wonder if my walk with my master looks much the same way from the angels’ perspective in heaven. Have you ever in your walk with Jesus and wondered why it feels that you are getting nowhere? I am just saying that perhaps we like Hobbes have stopped in the middle of the journey, wanting to show we still have some control over our lives- and therein lies the problem. We need to surrender all to Jesus and I mean all, if we are ever to enjoy walking with him on this side of eternity. The restraint we sometimes feel in our lives is good. Hobbes has often wanted to dart into the street into the path of an oncoming car, and if he did not have me holding a lead on him he would have been killed. That restraint you feel is the Holy Spirit keeping you from harm’s way. In the words of Fleet Wood Mac, a 70’s band, “You can go your on way, and call it another lonely day”. I for one want to go God’s way. I am thankful for the one who walks with me. May we all learn to follow Him and not fight His leading. Each time when we walk, I eventually make it back home with Hobbes, and every day he gets better at following me. I pray I too get better every day following my master as well.
Following Jesus,