We had a second stint of puppysitting recently and this time Chloe adapted more quickly. By the end of the first day, she and now six month old Bella were romping together in the field. Chloe was still the boss and called the shots—including the play schedule—but play they did, especially in the evenings when Chloe would crawl out from under the porch, stretch, look over her shoulder at Bella and scamper off with a toss of the head—an open invitation to “catch me if you can.”
Bella also came with us when I gave Chloe her morning walk around the property. Chloe usually accompanies me in a steady trot, stopping here and there to sniff at an armadillo hole or a depression at the bottom of the fence where a possum makes its nightly excursions. Bella preferred to run everywhere, usually in the meandering lines of Billy, the little boy in the Family Circus comic. Then when she suddenly looked up and found herself behind, she would come bulling her way past us in a brown blur.
It was one of those times that particular morning and I heard her overtaking us like a buffalo stampede. The path at that point was narrow, just room for me, my two walking sticks, and Chloe. As Bella drew near, I just happened to be looking down when she very neatly leapfrogged over Chloe without disturbing a fur on her head. In a few seconds she was around the bend and out of sight.
I wonder how many we leapfrog over every day and leave in the dust behind us because we’re too impatient to wait, too unconcerned to care, too impulsive to even notice? Sometimes the young with their new ideas, scriptural though they may be, have too little respect for the old warriors who need time to consider and be sure. Sometimes the more knowledgeable become too arrogant to slow their pace for the babes or those whose capacity may not be as deep. Sometimes the strong forget that God expects them to help the weak, the ill, the faltering. All these people are just obstacles in our way, things to get past in our rush.
When you leapfrog over a brother and leave him behind, how do you know he will make it? God didn’t expect us to walk the path alone. He meant for us to walk it together. When you lack the love to walk it with your brother, you may as well not walk it at all.
Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon m. Romans 15:1-3.
Dene Ward
Bella also came with us when I gave Chloe her morning walk around the property. Chloe usually accompanies me in a steady trot, stopping here and there to sniff at an armadillo hole or a depression at the bottom of the fence where a possum makes its nightly excursions. Bella preferred to run everywhere, usually in the meandering lines of Billy, the little boy in the Family Circus comic. Then when she suddenly looked up and found herself behind, she would come bulling her way past us in a brown blur.
It was one of those times that particular morning and I heard her overtaking us like a buffalo stampede. The path at that point was narrow, just room for me, my two walking sticks, and Chloe. As Bella drew near, I just happened to be looking down when she very neatly leapfrogged over Chloe without disturbing a fur on her head. In a few seconds she was around the bend and out of sight.
I wonder how many we leapfrog over every day and leave in the dust behind us because we’re too impatient to wait, too unconcerned to care, too impulsive to even notice? Sometimes the young with their new ideas, scriptural though they may be, have too little respect for the old warriors who need time to consider and be sure. Sometimes the more knowledgeable become too arrogant to slow their pace for the babes or those whose capacity may not be as deep. Sometimes the strong forget that God expects them to help the weak, the ill, the faltering. All these people are just obstacles in our way, things to get past in our rush.
When you leapfrog over a brother and leave him behind, how do you know he will make it? God didn’t expect us to walk the path alone. He meant for us to walk it together. When you lack the love to walk it with your brother, you may as well not walk it at all.
Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon m. Romans 15:1-3.
Dene Ward
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