Author John Sherill once wrote about an experience at a lake near his home in Chappaqua, New York. He watched as a retriever scrambled up the bank and dropped a stick at her master’s feet, before shaking water all over him. The dog owner praised her, saying “Good girl, Martha!” Then he turned to Sherrill and asked if he wanted to see something interesting. “When I tell you, throw this stick into the lake, close to my dog.”
Martha’s master hurled his own stick far out into the lake. The dog jumped in and began to swim toward it. “Now!” said the owner. “Throw your stick just in front of her.”
Sherrill did, the stick landing in the water just a few feet in front of Martha, to her right. She immediately adjusted her direction, swimming toward the stick Sherrill had thrown. But then something remarkable happened. With her keen sense of smell, she discovered that this stick was not the one her master had thrown. She left that stick floating in the water, and returned to her original goal of retrieving the stick thrown by her master.
Sherrill wrote, “I hope for the same kind of faithfulness-never to be distracted, but to head only for the goal given to me by my Master.”
