I like to wake up early in the morning before sunrise to walk my dog. I do it each morning at a set time. If it’s a Sunday or a designated Holiday, all the better.
I do it to do it
It is said what we do daily forms a habit. It would be difficult to break a habit after a year. My dog is a good boy, but I’m not sure he’d react kindly if I started to skip the early morning walk all of a sudden. Every morning he awaits patiently as I finish my coffee. As I get up, he joyfully springs to action. We enter the mystical realm of outdoor wonder almost the instance we’re through the front door. The density of air is different. It is different in the fall, and it is different each of the four seasons. We are adventurers.
That the path that I choose is mostly routine is part of the charm, up the alley, down the street and into the woods. Rabbits and hares are the most common sight. I tell my dog, there’s your buddy. Instinct tells buddy rabbit to hop along.
Wild animals of the nature are the most stubborn followers of routine and protocol, but their traffic circles and red lights are mostly invisible to human eye. By scent and slowly built experience they discern and navigate the wide-open spaces by narrow turf paths. Sometimes the knowledge is generational. Early bird gets the worm and those birds who do not show up early for the buffet are not there to teach the future generation of birds anything.
The morning walk I am describing is somewhere between the optimal and the average. By now all the positives outweigh the negatives so much that I am not likely to stop waking up early for the walk with my dog any time soon.
Living life by routine is not something to oppose for the sake of opposing. Let’s not be rebel without a cause.
30 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: 2 That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! 3 Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. — Isaiah 30:1-3 (KJV)
Isaiah Chapter 30 has a strong word against rebels. ”Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord. ”Who carry out a plan, but not Mine…” Woe means judgment is coming. These rebels carry out their own plan without first consulting the Word of the Lord. They take shelter in the shadow of Egypt, which is not such a good idea. It is like rabbit entering foxhole because of storm. The rabbit knows better, but sometimes we, children of the Lord, act as if we do not.
You reap what you sow
Even when something unexpected happens suddenly, or seemingly out of the blue, there’s a good chance it was a result from a logical set of events, of which most were hidden from us, or we failed to grasp the significance of. Yet, had we trusted the original instructions, we would have been just fine.
47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: 48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. 49 But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. — Luke 6:47-49 (KJV)
In Luke Chapter 6, Jesus talks about a man who built a house. The man dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock. When a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and yet could not shake it. You know there are houses that are almost hurricane-proof. We cannot control the unexpected but we can control ourselves.
Sometimes we get it completely wrong. Take for example the mason who wants to make his mortar extra strong. What could go wrong, right? He uses too much cement and after drying too quickly because of this, the mortar shrinks and it cracks!
Jesus is a rock in the weary land, like the old hymn says. Let’s not walk in the counsel of the wicked, they’re an accident waiting to happen.
18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. — Proverbs 4:18 (KJV)
God bless you, Dear Reader.
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