Lessons from a run with the dog!
So I know its been FOREVER since I blogged but this was just too good to pass up. Today was an absolutely beautiful day and its been a while since I’ve had time to go on a nice run. I got home from work and decided that I would take my dog for a run at Durant Nature Park. Like I said its been a while since I went running with my dog so I was suprised to realize that they were enforcing the leash law pretty heavily up at the park. Luckily my dog is pretty good with keeping up with me and so it wasn’t that bad; however, as I was running I got some VERY valuable incite into leadership and into life in general.
To begin, my dad usually is the one that takes my dog for a run so I didn’t know excactly how much he could handle. We began the run and like any dog he wanted to sniff and “mark his territory” on just about everything. After stretching out a bit and letting him get his business situated we started our run. Like I said its been a while since I’ve been able to run so I wasn’t even sure how much I could handle. At about our 2nd or so mile we came to a point in the trail where I decided we were going to forge a new path….in other words I got a little lost in all the different trail crossings…and we had to go through the non cleared brush a little bit to get back on the right trail. As we were doing this I realized that when I’m connected to my dog and he cant get through something lower to the ground that I can than I can’t get through it. How many times do we focus on the path in front of us and clearing the way for us to get through not realizing that us clearing the path may be putting stuff in the way of people following us? How many times do we just need to be the one who is not necessarily leading by being in the front, but be the leader by getting the obstacles (thorns, branches, etc.) out of the way for the people we’re leading and directing them through the obstacles that we have a better view of than they do?
So we finally emerged from the brush and got back on the trail, only soon to be faced with the obstacle of an open field. Now, to most this would seem to be far from an obstacle but after my dog had been following me on a narrow path that I was leading him down and we came to an open field with no set path or way to go it was very confusing to him. How many times do we as leaders and humans get to a time when things seem to be running smooth, a slow time in business or the ministry (an open field) and the people we are leading seem to start straying all different directions and seem to be confused? Sometimes the down time is the time when people need the most direction because its the time when there’s “nothing really to do,” and direction is hard to see without guidance. I realized that when I was running in the open field that my dog needed me to guide him in which way we were going because I could see the narrow path ahead and I had to keep him running at it or we would have missed it completely.
Lastly, when we finished the 5 or so miles and we got back to my car I had to get the key off of my shoe to get in the car and I let the leash out so my dog could deal with some more of his business. When I got up I realized he had gotten wrapped around my tire, a tree AND another persons tire. This was just icing on the cake for all of the great things that God was revealing to me about leadership and etc., because I realized that so many times we know that we have to get something done and we go to do it but forget to pay attention to the ones around us even though we are still connected to them, so if they go wondering around they could and often do get tangled up in things that we have to get them out of, which ends up taking up more time than if we would have given them something to do or kept them close by to begin with.
Let the Lord guide your path and show you the way.
Very insightful. Thanks for sharing.
ditto; good post