Training

 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

-Proverbs 3:5-6-

     When we first started to train our dog, Vulkan, it was quite interesting. My dad had several dogs in his childhood and knew that it would take a lot of time and patience to train a dog properly. As a girl who always LOVED  dogs, I enjoyed watching my dad train Vulkan. The first thing that my dad taught him was that he couldn't eat his food until he was given the command to do so. This was a trick that my dad learned back home so that dogs wouldn't eat food from strangers and “food” laying on the ground. So, when my dad went to feed our dog, he put the dog food into a bowl and set it on the ground. When our dog realized that there was food in the bowl, (which was right away,) he charged at the bowl, happy to fill his stomach. Just as he was about to eat, my dad's arms held him back. Vulkan couldn't understand what was going on. He barked and tried to keep running, but without any success. Finally, my dad would say the command, “Yesh!” (which means “eat” in Russian) and let go of him. Vulkan would run as fast as he could to eat his dog food. Vulkan could never understand why my dad kept doing that to him every time before he ate. Each day, he would slowly learn that he couldn't eat until told. Now, whenever we put any kind of food in front of him, he just sits with his mouth watering until he is given the command to eat. It's amazing to me that even though he wants to eat the food so badly, he doesn't try to grab it or do anything, he just sits patiently. I'm pretty sure that he still doesn't know why he can't eat until he is given the command. Instead, he has learned to just obey and take things by faith.
     What about us humans? Sometimes what God asks us to go through for Him doesn't make any sense at all, but all we need to do is just trust Him. We may never fully understand why God wants us to do certain things, but that's not important. The most important thing is to just trust God and when we follow His commandments because we may never know the dangers that we have be protected from, just like Vulkan. He never fully understood why he couldn't just eat things right away, but there was a bigger reason that he may never fully understand. So next time you're tempted to question God's will, remember that God sees the full picture and knows what's best for us. 

-Victoria