Walk with Me Here

Posted by: Josh Modert, Marketing and Events Coordinator | Monday, September 15th, 2025 (12:00am)

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.—Psalm 32:8-10

Puppies ruin lives. There I said it. Puppy lovers come at me. They are objectively terrible. They bark and whine all night, they bite you, jump on your kids, chew up your… everything, eat mud, actively try to kill themselves and sometimes, sometimes, when you don’t play with them at six in the morning they do that little circle dance, peer over their shoulder, stare directly into your eyes and spite-poop on your rug.

They are cute though, so I guess we’ll just ruin our lives to raise them.

Now look, I know you’re already writing an email to the station to have the “puppy hater” removed, but I’m not a pup-curmudgeon, I care about this dog. In fact, as my wife will tell you, I assumed the worst before I agreed to buy this brown mini goldendoodle named “Nugget.” I’m a realist. I counted up the cost, and I agreed to this out of an abundance of love in my heart. But reader, I have been tried.

Here’s the thing. Nugget’s getting better. Most of the issues have been improving, but there is one thing we really struggle with: going on walks as a family.

When Nugget isn’t biting the leash and growling at me, he is biting my five-year-old son in the rear and growling at him. No amount of treats or threats have worked. We often give up and carry our Nugget back to the "Nugget box," a crate as some of you may call it.

I remember eight years ago lounging in our front yard with my newborn daughter when a medium-sized, white dog came down the sidewalk, and to my horror, it had no leash. My wife says I’m overly cautious, but that is because she can’t recognize my spiritual gift of protection. Well, like a major-league shortstop, I dove and scooped up my daughter just in time to see the dog gingerly trot down the sidewalk with its owner. He had the gall to wave. The owner, not the dog.

Now I’m not condoning breaking what I assume is called “dog-law” (I can’t be bothered to Google it). I’m sure there are rules about leashing a dog, but to this day I watch this man leashlessly walk his dog, or should I say, walk with his dog, and I’m still amazed. His dog walks beside, sometimes in front of him, always keeping with the man’s pace, peaceful, and never straying from the path, not even to eat a baby. This dog has been perfect for almost a decade. Believe me I know, us protectors are always keeping track of potential threats.

Recently, I was making my way through a Bible reading plan when I came across something in Psalm 32. What I love about this reading plan is, because it’s chronological, it puts each of the psalms of David right after when scholars believe he was writing them at the time. Psalm 32 is believed to be one of the psalms written right after David confesses to his most grievous sin, the abduction and assault of a woman and the secret murder of her husband.

In Psalm 32 David recounts how heavy the Lord’s hand was on him before he confessed and repented. Indeed, even after his repentance David was rightly given great and severe consequences, but the psalm is mainly one of joy because David knows that though he deserves death and separation, the Lord has forgiven him. He can still walk with the Lord. This is what David writes from the Lord’s perspective:

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

Animals aren't the only ones who need to be curbed. In Galatians, Paul reminds us Christ has set us free from the leash of the law but he warns us not to use our freedom to indulge our fleshly desires. Otherwise, he says, we will “bite and devour” one another. But, if we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Ironically, just a few days ago, I sat with my son in his room during timeout talking to him about biting his sister. She did something to upset him and that was his chosen method of conflict resolution. So, I reminded him how much he hates Nugget biting him. I said, “I don’t want to keep disciplining you, I just want you to walk with us.” My son who doesn’t speak in metaphors needed some more explanation, I like to think, eventually, he came to understand.

God chose to have us like I chose to have my son and puppy, but unlike me, He completely understood the cost and the grief it would cause Him. I doubt our cuteness was what tipped the scales.

So what did?

God doesn’t want us on a leash. God doesn’t want to discipline us forever. He wants to walk with us, all of us together as a family, confident in His path and His provision. That is only possible if, like the white angel-dog in my neighborhood, we share the same mind as the Owner, the same goals, the same wisdom, the same discipline, the same heart, the same… Spirit. This is the end goal of His master plan, to make us like Him so He can set us free and have friendship with us as we walk with Him forever.

For freedom, Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).

So who am I to judge puppies and boys. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if maybe God gave them to me in part to say, “You see. This is what it’s like for Me. This is what it is like to want to walk with you.”

And, like my son sitting in timeout, I like to think the metaphor will not be lost on me, and eventually, I will come to understand.