OVER

It was a cold morning. Riding a tractor with no cab had the effect of lowering the wind chill factor. This daily ride to what I call "the back side of the place" was necessary to feed part of my flock. My stock dogs are vital in that effort, because they keep the sheep away from the tractor while I roll out those large bales of hay. Cold mornings present a basic challenge to complete the task quickly in order to get back to the house and "thaw out" before continuing other daily chores that are not as stressful as the cold ride to the back side of the place.

As I traveled that morning I was a bit apprehensive because I was taking King, a Border Collie we raised, who at one year of age was still in elementary school by human standards. He had some training, but was far from being seasoned. He was going with me and our two older dogs Queenie and Dottie. His mission was simply to get some experience.

As I was passing through one pasture in route I turned by bundled up body and peered from my hood looking to see if all dogs were will with me. I saw King 200 yards away in an adjoining pasture. He had taken a wrong turn several hundred yards back and was now separated from us. My first thought was, "Oh no, what will I do? If I turn and go back I'll surely freeze because of the extra time involved." There King stood on the other side of the fence wanting to follow me and the other two dogs, yet he didn't know how to get to us.

I decided to try something...it was worth the try...it might work....I certainly had nothing to loose. In a loud, clear voice I shouted, "Over, King! Over!" Praise the Lord, he did it! He sailed over that fence like a seasoned professional.

It's not incredible that King umped the fence but it is important to me as to how he arrived at that point. Our 8-year old son, Mark, had trained King the command "over" meaning jump over. That's now necessarily so remarkable either. Maybe nothing is remarkable about this story, but I learned much from the experience. You see, Mark wanted to work with the dog until soon work became work...the novelty wore off. The experience tried our patience; mine, Mark's and King's too, I suppose. I was persistent with Mark to be persistent with King. I can tell you I could have trained the dog in one-third the time it took me to train the child to train the dog.

That incident occurred a full year before I wrote this story. At this writing King is still a young dog, probably a teenager by human standards. Untrained, King would be another pet that could perhaps fetch sticks and biscuits. Left alone to run completely free he would probably be a sheep-killing dog. He is now worth thousands if he were for sale. You realize, of course, he is not worth so much just because he can jump fences. He is now a very good, but not completely trained sheep dog. King learned because of our persistence, and he learned by repetition. I did not train King to jump over the 4 ½ foot fenced; Mark trained him to jump a 3 foot hurdle in our yard, yet King responded to my command under very challenging circumstances. A valuable dog began his training by a mere child.

Recently I heard a man teaching church growth principles tell how children can win other people to Christ. A valuable soul can be won to Christ through influence by a mere child. Later that week I heard a minister explain how sheep are following shepherds, and sheep are following other sheep. About a week later I saw a six year old girl with microphone in hand bring tears to the eyes of people in a church congregation as she told in her own words about poverty stricken, starving children in Africa she saw the previous night on a Christian TV broadcast. Her plea for prayer was a powerful demonstration of who Christ Jesus is in the hearts of children.

There is a Good Shepherd Jesus Christ with many undershepherds. If you are a pastor you are certainly one of these workers. But you don't have to be a pastor to work for Him. Undershepherds have other undershepherds. You have someone you are training whether or not you are consciously aware of it.

Our dog is worth thousands. You, your children, grandchildren or any human cannot be valued with a dollar sign. Think about the elementary school age children you know. Think about where you would like them to be as teens or young adults. Are they presently receiving the proper mind-set? What do they receive repeatedly? What do they hear over and over and over that enters their minds. Will they receive from you the proper instruction that will prepare them for the time of crisis when the Good Shepherd calls loudly and clearly "over"? Or is there a chance that their mind will be exposed to several thousand hours of TV programming written and produced by those who serve a different master?

My prayer is that you first realize that you are a shepherd-in training and second, that you realize your responsibility to those who are under-shepherds to you. We must listen to the Good Shepherd and spend much time reading His training Manual. Then we must be persistent and patient as we teach the lessons.

Dennis Rowan
Shepherd-In-Training