This evening, I had to go gather a steer that was out, and the only one who would help me was Woodrow. A couple of weeks ago, Mandi’s Uncle Allen called me wanting to know if we wanted a dog. He was a red and white border collie that belonged to cousin Taylor Duby, but Grandma and Grandpa had inherited him some time during the summer. I called and left a message with Allen wanting to know more. Would he lie down when I told him to? How old was he? Is he smart? All those things a guy needs to know. Finally, Allen got ahold of Mandi. She talked with him for a few minutes while I was out in the barn. After a little bit, she showed up and said, “I think we need to have this dog.” I wondered why. “His name is Woodrow.” I smiled and agreed. You see, for years, we’ve named a lot things around our house after LONESOME DOVE characters. The day Parker was born, we had a five hour wait before Mandi finally rolled in for a C-Section. We had already chosen names, but we didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl. We had chosen the name Crae, a shortened version of Gus McCrae, for the boy. We actually had debated the name Call, but it got defeated in the final round of voting. The girl name, Parker, was one Mandi’s mom had suggested for a boy but I liked for a girl. As we watched LONESOME DOVE during that five hour wait, I realized that even Parker was a name from the epic saga of the West. Pea Eye Parker would be her nickname, and it has been ever since she was born. So, we have a daughter and a son named after LONESOME DOVE. We had a dog named Deetz. So when Mandi heard that this dog’s name was Woodrow, she was sure we had to have him. We picked him up last weekend. The dog is as kind of a dog as I’ve ever seen. He’s really just a big pup, around ten months old or so. He lays down pretty good, which I learned when we were working cattle up at Hereford, last weekend. He wanted to eat everything that came out of the chute, but when I told him “Down,” he went down. I’ve been working with him a little bit the past couple of days. He’s been doing pretty good. So when I had to go out and gather our roping steers, three of which happened to have crawled through the fence into the neighbor’s. I took him with me. Mind you, he has no training, and he’s just a pup, but I figured he might come in handy out in the neighbor’s pasture. I tied my horse up by the reins on the barbwire fence (a very tight barbwire fence, I should add), and I climbed over. Woodrow came bounding by me, and I told him to hit the ground. By golly, he did. I released him, and he started to instinctually herd the three steers on that side of the fence. I called him on and off all the way to the fence, and I never even had to break a walk. I praised him up one side and down the other. I got back to my horse, climbed on, and Woodrow and I went and gathered the rest of them to put them in a different pasture. He did pretty darned good, mostly on instinct. The main thing is that when I told him to lie down, he did it. He didn’t have to know much. He just needed to do what God made him to do and obey. It helped me in a big way. I can’t wait to get him trained for real. In our lives, God has given us a certain set of abilities, talents, desires, etc. We don’t have to get real complicated about how to use those for his glory. We simply need to do what God made us to do and obey him. As long as we’re obedient, we can’t go wrong. We can’t. For instance, if Bradley Harter loves riding bucking horses, he’s good at riding bucking horses, yet he puts God first in his life and does what God tells him to do (through his Word, prayer, others), he’s doing great. If he puts riding bucking horses before God, he’s not being obedient, and he’s liable to get kicked in the belly. But if he’s obedient, he’s going down the right path. In Psalm 119:30, the psalmist nails it. He says, “I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me.” All we have to do is be faithful. But that’s not a shallow concept. It’s deep. It means we know Jesus, we seek him, we study his word so it’s hidden in our hearts, and we truly love him and the mystery that he is. It’s not just about rules. It’s kind of like with my wife and I. I know there’s a rule against me cheating on her. But I don’t need the rule. I love her way too much to allow that to ever become a possibility. That’s what God’s looking for. He wants a love so deep that obedience is something we do out of love, not out of rule-following. And now, I’m going to rename the barn cats Lippy and Jasper.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 04:13:30 +0000
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