The Dog Story

"An Eskimo fisherman came to town every Saturday afternoon. He 

always brought his two dogs with him.  One was white and the other was black.  He had taught them to fight on command.  Every Saturday afternoon in the town square the people would gather and these two dogs would fight and the fisherman would take bets.  On one Saturday, the black dog would win; another Saturday the white dog would win - but the fisherman always won!  His friends began to ask him how he did it.  He said, "I starve one and feed the other.  The one I feed always wins because he is stronger."

An analogy is then made between the good white dog, our new nature in Christ, and the bad black dog, our old fallen nature. While we cannot eliminate the old nature, we can choose to feed the white dog.

From "The Holy Spirit: Activating God's Power in our Life," by Billy Graham 1978, although Christine first heard it from Marie Davis in 2001.