“But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you.” –Job 12:7 (Part Two)

It’s true what Spurgeon’s devo said a few days ago: Any good that happens in or through me, it’s God Who does it. The mess-ups, I admit it: they’re mine, not His.

So I need to be like Dog (last post), bonded and yielded, spirit-through, to my Master, sensing His wishes, meshing my soul with them, in complete unity with Him. Moved to do His desires.

But I keep thinking, “God, what DO you want me to DO?”

I can’t conceive/ receive/ believe that all He wants me to DO is only activity that mainly supplies and benefits myself and one other person. Yet that’s about all most of my exertion around here orbits right now. And I am simply not getting any other WORKing orders from Him—either because something in myself is blocking my hearing, or because He is simply not giving any.

I was once so BUSY. (Admittedly, too busy, but…) Now I feel laid off, side-lined, or—now that time is stretching out long—permanently fired? tossed out spiritually? dumped in the Kingdom trash can? It seems as if He doesn’t want me WORKing for Him.

He has left me such abundance—of tools, materials, abilities, and bodily health, even eyesight restored in fairly good measure—and now I also have time. But for what? Because here I wait, after waiting long, waiting still.

But not still. My mind whirls about…

 

My thoughts shift…

All over its pages, the Bible portrays God’s people as sheep, rather than dogs…

What can a sheep DO for her Master, her Shepherd? What could our sheep DO for us when we had them?

Nothing really! As wool sheep they produced wool, but that wasn’t WORK. It was just BEING a sheep, whose very sheepness produces wool. They could DO nothing to make their wool better, except just graze the good pasture their overseer provided. They could make it worse, by running off, presumptuous or rebellious, returning later through brambles and burrs! But that’s just as Spurgeon says…

Any good thing a sheep produces is nothing for her to brag about, “Baaaaa.”

So what if it isn’t DOing but BEing my Lord wants? What if He, the Good Shepherd, just wants me to BE His sheep?  If so, how does this WORK? 

Dogs CAN DO things for their masters: fetch a newspaper, round up sheep, guard the house, lead one who’s blind. And I must say their tasks appeal to me more than a sheep’s non-tasks. Yet the Bible tells me I’m not a dog, but a sheep.

Yet even Dog, who appeared here that day, what endeared him to me? The JOBS he did? No. I never tried, once, to get him to guard, or fetch a paper or a shot duck—even though he was a retriever. (I don’t shoot ducks, anyhow, just like to watch them quack on the pond…)  It was because of the way he more than obeyed, how he yielded, meshed with my mind, incredibly!

It was the evident bonding, meshing with me that did it. In his short time here he made himself mine.

As last post said, that was Dog’s lesson to me, not DOing busy-tricks.

It’s the sheep’s lesson, too: Just BE His, not running off, only to return all confused and covered with burrs and dirt.  Just BE His true and loyal sheep, and let how He made me  produce what it will, in His time.

“No longer do I call you servants… but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” -Jhn 15:15 

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