You aren't the alpha dog...

and neither am I !

There is a wonderful, ornery quote attributed to Hanna Smith that goes like this:
"Unless you are the lead dog, the scenery remains the same."

None of us is the lead dog. There is only one lead dog, and He is God. He is the alpha and the omega; He is the One who created each of us and who is sovereign over our lives and the lives of all created beings in the universe. That translates into: You are not in charge, and neither am I!

There are all sorts of ramifications to this. One, we don't really like reading that, let alone believing that. We like to think that we are the captains of our own ship, the drivers of our own car, the decision makers of this journey we find ourselves on. Like it or not, God's design, knowing what we are like, is to plant Himself firmly at the top of the food chain. He knows that without Him, we spin and spin and really have no purpose to our lives. 

Like the many dogs in a sled of dogs, someone has to be leader. Someone has to know the appropriate direction to travel, the one that will result in true happiness and attainment of important goals. In order for is to maximize our potential in this fleeting life, we really have to surrender the reins to One who knows us best and knows what is best for each of us.

This isn't easy. It is never really easy to lose oneself as primarily important. Think of the number of times one uses the pronouns I, me, we, us, mine, etc. We tend to live in the first person. We are called to give glory to God. To live lives that reflect His power, His truth, His righteousness... I could go on. He has called us to glorify Him so that we don't glorify ourselves because self-glorification is blinding and purposeless. 

He created each of us, having been a part of a family relationship with His Son and with the Holy Spirit, a relationship that means everything to Him. The happiness there in and God's natural openness to communicating with His created made Him want a larger, more inclusive family; the family of God. It is a family whose membership requires being secondary, being humble, being aware that Jesus, the Son of God, is our Lord and our King. If you are the lead dog, you cannot and will not attribute power of another.

But that isn't the issue because you aren't and neither am I. So relinquish, submit, honor, become humble and take joy in the fact that He knows what is best and wants you to be His child.

Praise our God!