I enjoy training dogs. Training dogs is a useful process, and a creative process, but it also creates order where otherwise there would be chaotic behaviour. By training a dog, you help the dog to function in a way that aligns with the requirements that are inherent to its life among people.

But does training the dog destroy its identity? By training a dog, a human changes its behaviour, modifies its personality and creates a different kind of animal. A dog without training (formal training or “on-the-job” training just by being around people) would not be able to live easily with most people. Dogs hunt, they can bite, they go to the bathroom where they shouldn’t, and generally don’t fit with what we do.

But are we any different? After all, we get trained as children, and our behaviour gets modified by our parents and others, in a way that makes us fit with what they do. And that’s called parenting, and socialisation, and so on. We tend to think of it as positive. But some would suggest that we risk destroying the identity of a child by raising it to conform with our expectations. Of course, there is good and bad parenting, and everything in between. But generally, a child is better suited to life if it has been raised well, so it seems like a good thing to do.

In parenting, and in training dogs, there is a conception of what the subject of our training could become, and then we work towards that. It doesn’t have to be an imposition, every child, and every dog has a unique nature, so we work with that, and help to shape it in a way that allows it to flourish, but also works well with our life.

If a dog is well-trained, and waits for its daily walk or run, rather than barking and biting to get what it wants, then its human is more likely to take it for a walk. Of course the human has to show up for the dog consistently. That’s part of looking after and training the animal, you have to do a good job of it. And if a dog doesn’t make you annoyed all the time because it’s doing things you don’t want it to (like eating pillows, sleeping on your bed, or whatever you don’t like) then the dog will get better treatment too, because you won’t feel the need to vent your anger on it actively or passive-aggressively.

Same exact story for kids- if they enrich your life, you treat them well, if they’re a source of frustration, you’ll take it out on them.

So it is better for both the dog and the owner, if the dog is trained. The dog becomes something more than it would otherwise be, not just something different. New ways of living and new experiences are opened up to it. It gets the joys of playing with humans, having a safe home, free food, free healthcare, a longer life-expectancy, skills development and intellectual challenge. That is, of course, if it’s in a good home. The dog gets the privilege of companionship with humans. The dog is elevated from just being an ordinary, natural, dog. It becomes a pet.

Maybe the same can be said for human beings in relationship with God. We have both the challenge and privilege of becoming something more than we otherwise could be. We are elevated from being, ordinary, natural Man, to being the New Man. The second Adam. The transformational journey of Christianity is like a doggo being trained to become a pet. It’s not always easy, but by allowing God to train us we become a type of Being that can flourish not just in our “natural” habitat, but in the home of God. And we get new ways of thinking, seeing, experiencing, feeling, and a new life. We get the privilege of companionship with our Creator, who created our natural self, and works with us to create and shape our eternal self, as well. The joys of this process, and the way of life that it opens up are beyond what we can understand before we are transformed. But as we are transformed, we see clearer, and experience more of what living with God is like.

The way life will be once that transformation is complete, that’s something worth imagining and dreaming about- that’s the “life of the age to come” the New Testament speaks of…

2 Corinthians, towards the end of chapter 5 says the following, regarding what is happening to Christians because of what Jesus has done:

” …those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! “