Do we listen to the voice of our Beloved?!

Dr. Lee Robertson tells the following story: one day he happened upon a crowd of people with a dog moving purposefully among them, performing various tricks. He looked about, trying to see what was going on, until he noticed a boy muttering something, to whom the dog was paying intense attention. After a short while, the dog went over to the boy, wagging his tail wildly in obvious elation. The dog fixed his eyes intensly on the boy and then came right up close to him. Robertson felt as if the dog was saying to the boy, “Did I not please you? Did I not completely obey you?” With great affection and gentleness, the boy patted the dog’s head and said to him, “good doggie” over and over. Robertson walked over to the boy and asked him, “If I gave you fifteen dollars, would you sell me this remarkable dog?” At the time this amount was substantial amount of money. But the boy replied, “Even if you gave me a hundred times that amount, I would never give up my beloved dog!” Tears fell from Robertson’s eyes and he withdrew, saying deep in his heart, “This dog knows its owner and how to please and obey its owner. May I, Lord, be the object of Your pleasure and hear Your voice, that I might hear You say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ [cf. Matt. 25:21]. Since that day these emotions have never left me!”

774 C.f. W. B. Knight, Knight's Treasury of 4000 Illustrations (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995): p. 441.