Mirrors

In reading some of Caesar Milan’s dog training (human training) books, I have been struck by this truth.  Our dogs are mirrors of us.  As I have pondered this, and even more piercing point struck my heart – our children are mirrors of us.  Why does my son or daughter get angry?  Manipulate?  Act overly excited?  Many times they have picked this up by imitating us.  They live with us.  They go on walks with us.  They eat with us.  If there is any fear in us, it will be in them.  If there is any resentment in us, it will be in them.  Children and dogs both seem to be like sponges that soak up whatever we are full of. 

With my dogs one thing I have yet to master is the walk.  Caesar tells me I must have calm-assertive energy.  Caesar tells me my dogs are mirroring me.  They lunge after the squirrel, they bark at the other dogs, and they freak out when people are on bicycles.  They are with their master, but they have decided there are other things in the world that distract them, that make them go on paths that the master is not going on.  The energy that they are soaking up in me must not be calm and assertive.  Maybe my energy is distracted energy.  What am I full of?  And if my dogs and my children mirror me, who am I to mirror? 

I imagine going on a walk with Jesus and looking always to Him and always focusing my energy on him, mirroring who He is.  I imagine not taking one step ahead of where he is going, but only walking the steps He steps, and stopping when He stops, always looking to Him.  And then I imagine myself distracted by other things, by other would be masters of my life, money, work, pleasure, sin, and things of this world.  I realize that unlike my dogs, the fault is not with the Master, but with me, the follower.  He is all the Master I will ever need.  I need nothing new or big or exciting.  I need to walk ever and only with my Master, mirroring Him with all that I am, for every moment of the rest of my life.

Idea:  Imagine walking with your Master, Jesus Christ, keeping pace with Him, never ahead, and never behind, mirroring the love and peace and hope and power that He has and is.  Looking to him the whole day even as a dog looks to its master.