Fetch Theology

Most days I try to make a point to go outside and throw the ball with our dog, Winnie. She likes a good fastball to track down at full speed or high bouncer to grab out of the air. And every time, without fail, she springs into action like she was born for this very moment. She darts out, snatches the ball, trots back with what I swear is a smile on her face, and then immediately drops the ball at my feet as if to say, “Again? Again!”

As I watched her do this over and over the other day I thought: this isn’t something I trained her to do. She just knows. It’s in her DNA. Meanwhile, our other dog, Ellie Mae, watches all this with the same enthusiasm most of us have while folding laundry. It’s simply not her thing—no sparkle in the eye, no instinct that says “CHASE THAT BALL.” She’d rather be digging.

Animals instinctively do what they were created to do. Consider the monarch butterfly, which migrates thousands of miles to a place it has never been before—not guided by experience but by something written deep inside it. Or salmon returning upriver, fighting currents to reach spawning grounds they’ve never seen but somehow still know. Something in them responds to a call they don’t fully understand but can’t ignore. And I wonder if the same is true for us.

If we are created by God, made in God’s image, filled with God’s Spirit, then perhaps there is something built into our spiritual DNA as well—something that calls us not toward chasing tennis balls or flying south for the winter, but toward the things of God.

Maybe this is what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Or when Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

If love is the defining trait of a disciple, then love is part of our Christian DNA. Not the sentimental, greeting-card version of love, but the kind that looks like compassion, generosity, forgiveness, service, and community. We sometimes think of Christlike love as something we have to master, as if it’s learned behavior. And yes, we grow in it, we practice it—but maybe we practice it the same way Winnie practices fetching: not to acquire the skill, but because something inside us recognizes the joy in doing what we were created to do.

When we forgive someone, when we serve a neighbor, when we reach out to someone who’s hurting, when we share generously—there’s something in us that lights up. Something that says, “This is who you are.”

This week, I’m thankful for the reminder from a happy dog with big energy. We were made to love. We were created to reflect Christ. It’s in our spiritual DNA. All we have to do is step onto the field, open our hearts, and follow the instinct God placed within us.

May God hold you,
Rev Chris Hester