I thought all dogs hated a leash. Mine is different. Our two year old Chocolate Lab, Lady Gator, goes nuts when I pull the leash out. She literally jumps in the air repeatedly, her tail going 90 miles an hour, instantly whining in delight. She knocks over shoes from the shoe rack near the door, and jumps on the door. Finally, she calms down long enough for me to put the leash on her collar, then it's off to the races outside!

It's not really the leash she loves, that's a Pavlovian response. Her real love is what that leash means: she is going for a long walk around the neighborhood or to the state park. The leash itself is a distraction, and probably annoying to her. The few times I'll take her somewhere that she can run without it, the better.

"Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." These words from Jesus talk about the leash I must wear, that is his yoke. A yoke has several meanings. It is a tool to make a draft animal work harder and more efficiently. It is a sign placed on a defeated enemy to humiliate them. And it is a way to share a burden between two parties, in equal measure.

Modern Christianity has denied the need in our lives for suffering, pain, and discipline. Who wants to desire those? Yet it is not for themselves that we desire them, but for the result they bring: a holy life united to Christ. We shouldn't look for pain and suffering, I know enough comes my way on it's own. But when Christ offers us his yoke, it isn't to punish us, or humiliate us, it really is so he can share our burden.

That is the beautiful part of the incarnation. God becomes man so that man may become God. By taking his yoke, and yes it is painful at times, we get the ultimate goal: union with God.

I was reading Catherine of Sienna last night, a few hours after another explosion of emotion at home from one of our teenagers. Catherine talked about how we want to schedule our own ascesis, or discipline. How prideful we are to trust ourselves for our spiritual growth. Instead, when pain or suffering, or emotional teenage outbursts, or gettig laid off from our job, or so many other things; when they come our way, we should see them as Christ' yoke, reaching out to take us on a journey to a destination that will be worth the effort.

If only I could see the yoke Christ calls me to, as Lady Gator sees her leash.

I have searched for most of my adult life to learn to pray. I have prayed so that I may find God. And the longer I search, the more I pray, the more elusive God becomes it seems.

I remember when U2 first came out with the song "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." I remember having a conversation with an evangelical friend at the time. U2 (and myself) considered that a gospel song. The friend protested, surely it couldn't be. For Christians couldn't say that, we have found what we are looking for.

There is a truth to his statement, but also much truth to the song. As an evangelical, I thought conversion was the end. In truth, it is just the beginning, the beginning of a great journey. I am on the path, the way to the end, but the journey doesn't end, at least not in this lifetime.

And so I pray. And I continue to pray. To seek the hidden God. And I learn prayer is a relationship, a relationship of love, of seeking, of finding, of seeking again.

O the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing! Who has known the mind of the Lord? And who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him, and through him, and to him are all things To him be the glory forever, amen! Romans 11:33-36.