I’d like to share with you a few photos that the photographer took at the Guide Dog Association of those of us who completed the 14-day training with our new guide dogs.
For those who recently joined, our Lord, in His goodness, has provided me with a guide dog through the Guide Dog Association for many years now – something for which I am deeply grateful. However, every 10th year, a guide dog retires.
My previous, faithful guide dog ‘Pedro’ officially retired from my service on Monday, 10 March 2025.
For over 10 years, he led me across many roads and through many situations.
For 7 of those 10 years, by God’s loving grace, he helped me get through the 7 most terrifying years of my life – the years after my wife declined so severely due to dementia that she eventually didn’t recognize me anymore, until she passed into the arms of Jesus on 27 April 2019.
For those 7 years, Pedro took me to Cornelia every day under all weather conditions, and for 5 of those years, we walked 5.9 km every day to the Home where she was cared for – and then another 5.9 km back again.
Now that season of my life has come to an end, and I begin a new season with my new guide dog, Wilson.
I started training with Wilson on 14 March 2025 and completed the course on 29 March.
Wilson will be 2 years old on 10 April, and I truly believe we’re going to have wonderful times together.
During our 14-day training, I messed up a few times, but he handled it with a spirit of:
“It’s okay, I know you’re still new beside me, but you’ll get the hang of it and trust me completely.”
Knowing that Wilson and I will be on the road a lot, something about ‘the road’ stirred in my heart that I’d like to share with you:
Let you and I make sure each day of our lives, that on our way to our eternal home, we stay on the narrow path:
Matthew 7:13
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”
Matthew 7:14
“But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Let’s remember that Jesus is with us all along the way – and in us – and let us not become like the fig tree that ended in tragedy.
Remember?
Let me quickly share it with you again:
Matthew 21:18
“Early in the morning, as He was on His way back to the city, He was hungry.”
Matthew 21:19
“Seeing a fig tree by the road, He went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then He said to it, ‘May you never bear fruit again!’ Immediately the tree withered.” (and so, it perished forever)
Someone might ask:
“Wasn’t it a bit unfair of Jesus to curse the fig tree like that?”
Because in Mark’s gospel, we read:
Mark 11:12
“The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.”
Mark 11:13
“Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to find out if it had any fruit. When He reached it, He found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.”
But do you know – that was exactly the horror of that fig tree’s life. It was, in a way, proclaiming to the world:
“Look at me, it’s not even fig season yet and I already have fruit. That’s how impressive I am.”
So many Christian people talk a lot of Christian leaf talk, so to speak.
Yes, they are full of Christian leaves – but when Jesus comes looking, He finds only leaves, and no real fruit of being a Christian.
Of course, there is one huge difference between you and me as Christians, and that fig tree that was cursed forever:
Jesus went to the cross at Golgotha and shed His precious blood for us.
So maybe today, and in your heart, our Lord is saying the same thing to you – that at the moment, you’re a Christian in name only.
Full of Christian leaves, but Jesus, and the people around you, can’t really see the fruit of a Christian life.
Unlike the fig tree, the Word says – and this is especially for you reading this with that knowledge in your heart:
1 John 1:6
“If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.”
1 John 1:7
“But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, (because we not only have leaves, but Jesus and the people around us also see the fruits of the Holy Spirit in us), and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”
Ephesians 1:7
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
Colossians 1:14
“In whom (that is, Jesus) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
So, all you can do right now, right here while reading this Thought from the Word, is to sincerely ask our Lord to forgive you for only bearing the leaves of repentance – and commit that from now on, you don’t want to carry just leaves of Christianity anymore, but that Jesus and those around you will see the fruits of the Holy Spirit in your life. And then you regularly remind yourself of these fruits:
Galatians 5:22
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Greetings,
Sakkie
