Come-Along

Experience has taught me that the Shepherd is far more willing to show His sheep the path than the sheep are to follow. He is endlessly merciful, patient, tender, and loving. If we, His stupid and wayward sheep, really want to be led, we will without fail be led. Of that I am sure. Elisabeth Elliot

Have you ever used a come-along?  Maybe I should first ask, do you know what a come-along is?  A come-along is a small portable winch that consists of a cable attached to a hand operated rachet; a mechanism that allows you to lift or pull something in one direction. 

When we were kids we had several cows.  Bertha was our prize milk cow.  She was this big lumbering bovine.  Once all the animals were fed we would let them out into the pasture or the woods behind our house.  Bertha would do what I guess most cows do every day; she would wander around eating grass. At the back of our property was a bayou.  If you are not from Louisiana you may not know what this is either.  A bayou is a slow moving body of water that is normally a small branch of a larger river. 

Our particular bayou had an alligator or two. We knew they were there but we seldom saw them.  One evening we were feeding the animals and Bertha didn’t show up at the barn.  Cows are creatures of habit, so when one of the animals didn’t show up to eat we had to go wander the woods looking for them.  We finally found Bertha.  She had gotten a little too close to the bank and being a big lumbering bovine she lost her balance and fell down the incline and got stuck in the mud at the bottom.

When you live around animals you always need to be prepared for the unexpected.  So what do you do with an overly large bovine, stuck in the mud with the potential for an alligator to come along looking for its next meal?  Plus, there is no way to get a vehicle to this part of the property to try to pull her out.  You run back to the barn and get the come-along.  You hook the cable to the cows harness and attach the other end to a big tree.  Bertha was no skinny cow.  We needed leverage to get her out of the mess she was in.  It felt like it took hours to hoist her out of the mud.  She protested quite loudly but I am sure she wouldn’t have appreciated the alternative. 

As I was thinking about this story, it reminded me of how we can be just like Bertha.  We wander away from God and get stuck in messes of our own making.  Cows are not the brightest bulb in the ceiling and sometimes we aren’t either.  We will often do things that are against everything God tells us do, and then we wonder how we got into it.  I like to think that God has a sort of spiritual come-along.  He knows when we are going to do something that will get us off track and often He will send in a “spiritual come-along” such as a friend or family member to pull us out of the mire we have gotten into. 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I often get into trouble and many times it is of my own making.  Often it is because I think like Bertha, that the grass is greener on the other side and when I get there I find myself disappointed.  I praise You for sending friends and family who will speak truth to me so that I can get back on track.  Thank you for Your patience with me when I get mired in the sin of my own making.         

Scripture:  Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.  He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.  Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.  For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.  Psalm 1:1-6