I use farm animals as examples quite a bit. I suppose that is just the most natural thing for me to do since I have been blessed to have grown up with their living, albeit animal, expressions of God's creativity and character. Watching them, seeing them grow and interacting with the critters has taught me countless invaluable lessons from which I tend to draw my blog posts.
This one is no exception.
God is love. He is loving, full of love, lovely, lovable, etc. But His very being is that of Love. He is also creative and personal. Full of goodness and grace for us, His beloved creation.
Cows, on the other hand...oh they're cute alright. Until they turn 5 months old, or until weaning time when they are endlessly bawling for their mothers to come rescue them from the evil humans who are keeping them apart and denying them of their precious milk. Cows are dirty, they make messes that we call pies for some reason, and stick their tongues up their noses to lick out their own snot -which, because of where tongues usually come from, it all ends up in their mouths. That leads me to recall this: Cows eat grass. Which means they spend most of their lives with their noses pressed fairly close to the ground, and eating whatever dirt and bugs are on the blades of grass along with whatever else makes it's way in front of the living lawn mower. Eating grass...yum. Yet another thing about cows is that they need to be protected. A few of them have survival intelligence but most simply do not. A fence is the typical boundary and although it keeps the cattle in a confined area, it does serve as protection. Protection from their own stupidity and protection from whatever carnivorous creatures might be lying in wait on the other side.
Now, don't get me wrong. I love cows! They are great creatures and only someone as creative as the God I serve could have come up with them! But allow me to draw an analogy for the sake of the point I would like to make later on.
God : Man as Man : Cow (verbalized, that is: God is to Man as Man is to Cow)
Please bear with me as I make my "argument". God made Man in His own image, and though it is quite true that Man did not make a cow, for the sake of the following example, stick to the analogy until I'm done. Then feel free to tell me how ridiculous my analogy is. :) Also, if you're offended that "cow" now takes up the position where "man" once was...I am not sorry at all.
OK. God created Man with parts of His own characteristics and we all reflect Him in some way. And while cows don't exactly reflect us, in view of God being compared to man, I am actually willing to suggest that they do indeed reflect us more than we'd like to admit.
After all, we need protection. We need boundaries so we don't kill ourselves with our own stupidity. We make messes (we even make pies!) and we feed ourselves things that are bad for us, and can hardly see a step in front of our faces because we have our noses pressed to the dirt of all the things of our very important personal lives all the time. If we just could step back and see things from a little more distance, I wonder how much more we would see and understand. All that being said, we are cows.
Story time:
Cow can be pretty dumb (hey look! another thing we have in common!). But something that they don't realize (brace yourself for yet another similarity), is that that fence that I mentioned earlier is for their benefit. Not because we humans want to be all overly controlling and domineering and forcing them into submission with an iron hand (which is, unfortunately, how humans often view God). We want to protect the cows and their calves. They are valuable and important, so we treat them well and protect them.
Occasionally, they lose sight of that and decide to escape. For awhile they are happy with their new found freedom until....well until they get hungry. Sometimes, though, they find some grass that keeps them happy and they set up a little refugee camp. But, like I said, those cows are valuable to us and frankly, they belong to us, so what do we do?
When this happens, my siblings and I grab a few buckets, some grain and a stick and head off to gather our lost bovine herd.
When we find them, we coax them back into the correct side of the fence with the grain. Usually, that works great! Usually. We are gentle, speak in soft, comforting tones and we pet them to get them to relax and trust us.
But there is always a crazy one. One in every herd gets a little ADD or is just obstinate and blind to the fact that there is more freaking delicious grain waiting for them at home! Sometimes, this cow needs a stick poked into its rump to get it moving in the right direction.
I don't like to use the stick. But sometimes I don't have a choice. I much prefer to use the grain and reward them for following me back to the place where they belong. Sometimes it is just clear that they forgot how much they need you and when they remember that it's the people who give them what they need, it is like you can almost see a smile on their faces as they run towards you with their ears flapping around. Almost.
Remember the analogy. Are you an ADD or obstinate cow? Are you a cow who just kinda forgets where all the good stuff comes from? Are you too eager to leave the protection that the fence provides?
I, as one of the ones who would gather lost cows, know that the preferable way to do it is with the kind and gentle heart that gives them grain and reminds them why they want to come back home. I do not want to have to use the stick, but I will if the cow asks for it by ignoring me and disobeying me. I know that if I came to them with fireworks and was beating them with a stick to get their attention, I would have it alright. They would see me as dangerous and frightening and I would be driving them AWAY from me instead of TO me.
When we leave the fence, the safety net of protection that God has set up for us, and we get all independent and stuff, God approaches us gently, with grace and mercy. If we force His hand, though, He may have to use the stick of discipline, but that isn't how He wants to approach us. When we finally realize that the grace and mercy that He has for us is overwhelming, we have the choice to follow Him or reject Him and try to handle our "freedom". Isn't it wonderful how God approaches us gently and tries to draw us towards Him instead of sending us even farther away from where we belong by being harsh?
Sometimes, when we force God's hand to use the stick on us, we view it as harshness from God. But I would argue that it is still His mercy and grace. After all, if I were to leave my cows outside the fence, I would be condemning them to hunger, danger, and ultimately death. So it is still good and merciful of me to use the stick to get the stubborn, distracted, or wild ones back to safety. For their own benefit and so that I, as the one who values them, can have peace knowing that what I love is safe within my care.
This isn't meant to be a "which kind of naughty cow are yooooou?" post. Rather, I would like you to look at the analogy I laid out in view of God's mercy and grace towards you. He is not a harsh God. He does not want to punish or frighten what is precious to Him so that they flee even farther from His presence. Instead, He wants to woo us and coax us and remind us why we should learn to follow and love Him more.
For He is love. He is good. And He loves and is good to us -so much more than we realize.
