"Over the weekend, I attended a picnic at a friend's house. It was a really nice day as we sat and talked in the backyard. I couldn't help but notice their cute, little family dog running around the yard.
The dog just wandered around the group, sitting in the shade from time to time. Then all of a sudden, it jumped up and growled. Immediately, my friend yelled its name as the dog took off towards a fence behind me.
I turned around and saw what had caught this tiny dog's attention. On the other side of the fence were 3 humongous dogs. Next to this tiny dog they looked like horses!
This tiny dog tried to pick a fight with these huge dogs! He scratched at them, barked at them and tried to fight them! The dogs on the other side of the fence went insane trying to get at the little guy. Both owners jumped up and dragged their dogs away as I watched in stunned silence at the stupidity of this little dog.
When I commented about the little dogs' veracity, my friend’s wife said, "He thinks he’s a tough guy and can take on anything because he knows the fence keeps him safe."
Then she told us how the day before she had gone to the neighbor's house to borrow some chairs for the party. She asked the neighbors to keep their dogs locked in the house while she opened the gate, but the dogs ran out of the house and into the yard.
In response, the little dog went storming at the fence, doing his usual tough guy act. However, the fence was open and the big dogs came pouncing towards him!
Suddenly the little dog's tough guy act vanished and "he ran away like a little girl."
As I drove home that night, I was chuckling at the image of the dog who "thinks he is such a tough guy" as he messed with an ‘enemy on the other side of the fence’.
Then I started thinking how many times we as Christians do this when we play around with sin. We go right up to sin and engage it, thinking we are safe from its affects. But as the little dog learned, we don't always realize how unsafe we are. Before we know it, our toying with sin has us in a dangerous situation and we have to run for our lives.
While it was hilarious watching that little dog "be tough" on the safe side of the fence, his experience is a sharp reminder to us all of the danger of playing around with sin."
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excerpt from an article written by Jamie Holden for ag.org
