Sunday, December 13, 2009

Lessons learned from rounding up cattle

My Long Term Spouse (LTS), myself and her brother have a small herd of cows.  Recently, we needed to round them up.  Our cows are pampered - hay when the temperature drops and feed pellets fed by hand.  We can easily round them up just by calling them and shaking a feed bucket filled with pellets.

The herd easily went into the pen where the pellets were plentiful.  One older, stubborn cow refused to come into the corral.  I shut the gate on the other cows, who were busy eating, but didn't chain the gate closed and turned my attention to the stubborn cow.  One of the cows in the corral decided she was full and it was time to stage a jail break.  She headed toward the closed, unchained gate and pushed the gate open.  The jail breaker charged into the open pasture with 2 additional escapees following her.

At times are we not like the escaped cows?  God provides a roof over our heads and food on our table but we want what is on the other side of the gate.  We see a gap and we charge through the gate forgetting what God has provided.  We want to see what we can find, experience, or do for ourselves.

Just as we had to round up the escapees, God rounds us up and returns us to the safety and comfort of the corral.  God does not punish us but allows us to learn from our mistakes.  I'm glad I have a God who lovingly seeks me out, provides safety and allows me to learn from my "bull headedness".

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