It was December of 2018, in the burnt-out end of what had been one of the most agonizing and painful years of my life, that I was finishing a run one night on the road near my house.  In the dark of the bitter winter evening, my heart nearly stopped beating when what I believed to be a white phantom-like creature appeared suddenly on the road in front of me.  By the glow of my flashlight, I quickly discerned that the “ghost” was actually a pitiful puppy—a whimpering little guy who was skin and bones, with a wound on his front leg.  What I wouldn’t find out until we later visited the vet together was that he had been shot with a BB gun, was severely neglected, and had apparently been the victim of abuse.  

At any rate, I couldn’t bring myself to leave a vulnerable dog on the road on such a cold, dark night; when he chose to follow me home, I made no objections.  And so Gailey became a permanent part of my life.

Named for his happy disposition, Gailey approaches each day with a joie de vivre that is both heartwarming and hilarious—and occasionally disastrous.  He adores my black Labrador Retriever, Mercy, and somehow believes himself to be a superior being despite her much larger size.  He also possesses a catlike agility and enjoys leaping onto and exploring surfaces far above his head.  He’s a wonderful dog who brings me so much joy in many ways.  However, when he first joined our home, I realized he had one serious problem.

My observational research has confirmed that when bored, Jack Russell terriers daily consume five times their body weight in irreplaceable, invaluable possessions.  Ok, the figure may be exaggerated, but the general truth remains.  Gailey has so much energy that our veterinarian once remarked that we must have to “peel him off the ceiling” at times.  And all too often, especially at first, that energy combined with his intelligence to spawn some very, very creative methods for entertaining himself.  I was at a loss; I knew that “a tired dog is a good dog,” but frankly, tiring Gailey seemed impossible.

On a whim one day, as I was about to depart for a hike in the woods, I grabbed Gailey’s leash.  I wasn’t planning to go far, and I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him behind to devour his bed, shred his toys, spar with Mercy, splash his water all over the floor, or dig in the potted plants (these are not hypothetical scenarios).  

When we headed out the door that day, I wasn’t hoping that he’d fall in love with hiking or become an avid fan of the outdoors.  I was only trying to burn at least a fraction of his extra energy.  However, Gailey was delighted with his outing.  Today, I need only open the cabinet where I keep my hiking belt for Gailey’s excitement quotient to instantly double.  He will leap around, making a difficult-to-describe noise that sounds like a mashup of guinea pig squeals, seal barks, and whale calls.  He lives for our excursions into the woods.  

And while one might think that a dog barely weighing fifteen pounds would not be a great asset in a wilderness area, he’s a surprisingly valuable companion.  His greatest gift is something unexpected—a new perspective.

Too often, I apply mathematics to the trail.  The relaxation of hiking becomes quantified, the trail chopped into minutes, miles, steps.  And even if I manage to refrain from approaching the hike with the robotic determination of a gym session, I’m still woefully pathetic at allowing my soul to settle into the present moment.  Everything else—from long-ago regrets to a hypothetical future catastrophe to my options for dinner tonight—tends to intrude.  

Yet Gailey combats this entire tendency.  You see, Gailey has his own pace and his own rhythm.  He stops many times—sometimes to roll in dry leaves, sometimes to painstakingly examine a fallen log, and sometimes to perform the sacred art of, ahem, territory marking.  In his own delightfully and maddeningly unhurried way, he weaves back and forth across the trail—or leaves it altogether for a momentary investigation.  He slows me down and holds me back and trips me up.  But at the same time, he sets me free.

You see, what started as an exercise for him became an exercise for me—a workout for my sense of gratitude, an object lesson in noticing blessings.  If I am patient—if I allow myself to release the distractions and watch the world through Gailey’s eyes—I see wonders.  My soul expands and my worries shrink.  I slow down and look up and breathe in and reach out.  And at my fingertips is a world I sometimes forget—a world of beauty and wonder and too much excitement to ever experience in one hike or even one lifetime.  And at the end of the day, I thank Gailey for a great trip—a hike in which he was my protector, companion, fitness buddy, but most importantly, my tour guide in the blissfully simple yet delightful world in which he lives.  

We all have places in our lives like this—places where the gentle sweep of joy has been crushed by the tyranny of urgency.  In days of old, life had fewer sharp edges.  Today, bleeping alarm clocks have replaced the simplicity of sunrise.  We rush about with our heads down, AirPods in our ears, eyes glued to screens, and minds doggedly chasing the next item on our to-do list.  In the process, we’re missing the miracles—the wonder of the beauty of our lives.

And we’re aware of it.  We know we’re missing out.  But we don’t know how to make it any different.  For the single mom, the college freshman, the busy executive, or simply the stressed-out American, life is too frenetic.  If there are miracles along our path, we’re too tired to notice them and too harried to seek after them.  Like my former hikes, our life is quantified—tasks completed, bills paid, money earned, promotions received, days survived.  

How do we find another path?  I’m convinced the secret isn’t necessarily to do less.  The secret is to do different.  

I’m reminded again of my hikes with Gailey.  When I hike with him, he doesn’t demand that I shorten my course; he’s well able to hike for five or six miles, even on his stubby legs.  He also doesn’t require me to choose easier terrain; he can scramble over rocks, plow through underbrush, and is famous for his deerlike leaps over fallen logs.  The complexity and difficulty of my hike doesn’t change.  What does change is the way I approach it.  My plans aren’t compromised—they’re reimagined.  The hike becomes not a race or a test of skill, but a journey of discovery.  

What if the way I hiked with Gailey was the way we lived our lives?  

Not catering to the whims of a small dog, but submitting to the requests of the Holy Spirit.  Not marveling with our pet at a funny toadstool or herd of deer, but opening ourselves to receiving the blessings that God has tucked into our lives for us to find.  

Certainly, sometimes adjustments are necessary.  We may have taken on too much at work, made too many commitments, or have time-wasting habits we need to kick.  However, I’m convinced that most of the time, our chronic dissatisfaction with our lives doesn’t stem from a lengthy to-do list; it comes from a beauty-starved heart.  If we shifted our attitudes, we might find ourselves living a whole different life—without making any external changes. 

If you’re still unsure, just consider the example of Jesus.  What we tend to overlook when we read the Gospels is that Jesus was an incredibly busy Man.  We’re told that the people who wanted to be healed clamored so loudly for His touch that He interacted with them from morning till night with no time to eat.  He preached to crowds so massive that once the only way to keep from being thronged was to deliver His message from Peter’s fishing boat.  He traveled from town to town on foot, was constantly accosted by His enemies, and spent painstaking hours training His disciples.  Yet in the midst of His insanely hectic life, He didn’t streamline His schedule; He made His every deed and word a prayer.  He lived His earthly life from a place of compassion, dedication, and constant communion with the Father.

If, then, we are going to live this way—if we are going to walk in the saturation of the Holy, as Jesus did—then a major adjustment is required.  We have to learn to move in the rhythm of the Spirit, traveling at His pace.  

I don’t set many records when I hike with Gailey.  Fastest mile, fastest hike, fastest trip up a mountain and back down—those have been in other times, other places, when I wasn’t accompanied by a dog.  And since I have such a strong competitive streak, I have to admit that irritated me at first.  When he would wander off the trail or scamper onto a rock or stop to play in crunchy autumn leaves, I would tug on his leash and urge him to keep up.  My (already limited) patience would drain.  My temperament would sour.  My frustration would begin to simmer.  But that was before I learned to move at his rhythm.  If I slow my pace slightly, we’re both happy—and I’m aware of the beauty I’m otherwise passing by.  Even when he stops altogether to investigate a most interesting smell or close his eyes and enjoy the wind blowing his ears, I only smile.  What at first seemed like needless distractions are now the moments of connection and enjoyment I cherish.

And so it is for us as we learn to move in step with the Spirit.  You see, the Spirit is not in a hurry.  He doesn’t work on our timetable or deliver on demand.  And at first, learning to move in His rhythm is frustrating and feels counterproductive.  We’re not getting there fast enough!  We’re not doing enough, saying enough, being enough!  

But then we begin to realize something.  As we move with the Spirit, we notice blessings along our trail that we might otherwise have blown right by.  They are sometimes small gifts of grace—a smile from a friend, a lovely sunset as we drive home, a bird that landed right outside our office window.  Frequently, they come in the form of opportunities to be nearer to Him.  Perhaps we begin to pause before we make an important decision.  Perhaps we backtrack to hold a door for someone carrying a heavy load.  Perhaps we even begin to breathe brief prayers throughout the day as we go about our duties—a prayer for safety while driving, for discernment when offering advice to a friend, for diligence in our workplace and healing for a sick coworker and patience with our difficult spouse.  

And when He brings us to a halt, we notice that there’s always a reason.  Sometimes He might stop us for our good.  Maybe He forces us to pause and consider our route—to recognize when we’re rushing ahead of Him.  Maybe He gently requests that we rest for a moment when we’re soul-sick from the world.  Other times, He’s interrupting our plans to inject moments of meaning into our days.  The chance to talk to a friend who’s hurting.  The conversation we had with a stranger.  The homeless man we were able to bless.  Distractions?  Interruptions?  Far from it.  These are planned encounters—for His glory.  

Miracles.  They are everywhere.  Gailey will tell you that.  From his point of view, each time he discovers a path of a soft moss or a tree with scaly bark, each time he splashes in a shallow stream or roots in a hole in the bank, he has found another one.  And if I stay in step with him, then I smile the whole time I hike—because through his eyes, I’m finding them too.  Sometimes we get to see miracles—sometimes we get to be miracles.  But either way, we will only find them when we are watching—when our eyes are open, our ears are tuned, our hearts are waiting.  Perhaps that’s why it’s so important to move at the pace of the Holy Spirit—not rushing ahead, not staring at the ground as we check off another mile and another and another.   His cadence is slower, His rhythm sustained, His timetable radically rearranged.  But it is His schedule—orchestrated in the light of eternity—that we must keep if we are to glory in the gifts He has laid in our path.  

Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any pets who accompany you on adventures? I’d love to hear in the comments!

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