The Seed of Rejection

"Come all you weary,
With your heavy loads,
Lay down your burdens;
Find rest for your souls.
My yoke is easy
And my burden is kind;
I'll take yours upon me,
And you can take mine.
Come all you weary,
Who move through the earth;
Who've been spurned at fine restaurants,
And kicked out of church.
I've got a couple of loaves,
So sit down at my feet;
Lend me your ears
And we'll break bread and eat.
Come all you weary.
Come, gather 'round near me;
Find rest for your souls.
Come all you weary;
You crippled, you lame,
I'll help you along;
You can throw down your canes.
We've got a long way to go,
But we'll travel as friends.
The light's growing bright;
Further up, further in."
-'Come All You Weary' by Dustin Kensrue

It never fails, every year I have some 'bad mamas' here on the farm that give birth to multiples (twins or triplets) and they reject one. Sometimes, a baby is rejected because there's genuinely something wrong with it, but other times it's simply because mom prefers one baby over the other. Right now, I'm bottle feeding one of these--a perfectly healthy alpine buckling that his mom decided she didn't like after nursing him along with his sister for a few days. It's pathetic to see him run to his mom with his little tail wagging and watch her plow her head mercilessly into his side to prevent him from drinking her milk.

Some of us have literally been rejected by one or both of our parents. All of us have been rejected by someone. Maybe it's because there was something wrong with us. Maybe it's not. Maybe, in some instances, there was nothing wrong with either person but God needed to break up that relationship. Any way that rejection comes, though, it hurts. It's up to us whether we are going to let that seed of rejection spring into a tree of bitterness. "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears." -Hebrews 12:14-17

Guard your heart and be certain that whatever you do, you don't let the seed of rejection sprout a tree of bitterness. Esau emotionally reacted to the chastening of his foolishness and sought the destruction of his brother, Jacob. However, when he rejoined with Jacob, they embraced as brothers. Whoever has spurned you, forsaken you, judged you, or even literally abused you...I encourage you to embrace them as family if at all possible. Many, many years passed before Jacob and Esau were reunited. It may be that whoever has hurt you will not cross your path again for so many years as well. Use those years to put an ax to the root of bitterness and turn your seed of rejection over to God. He can change the inner workings of it to grow a tree of forgiveness.

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A seed of rejection planted in the flesh will grow a tree of bitterness. A seed of rejection planted in the spirit will grow a tree of forgiveness.
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God offers a place of rest for our torn souls. When 'bad mama' has rejected her baby, I scoop up the crying, rejected kid and nurse it as if it were my own. I warm milk in bottles, teach it to drink, and keep a schedule for it. Often, I even put a diaper on the baby with a hole for the tail so it can run around the house and even come with us to other people's houses. When you've been rejected, cry out! The Good Shepherd will hear your cries and scoop you up and tend to your needs.

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands..." -Isaiah 49:15-16

When I first fell in love with the Lord, He spoke to me through the words of a poem written by e.e. cummings. I know nothing of this poet's life. I don't know if he knew Christ or if he was a devout pagan, but I know my Lord said to me these words through him:

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)"

May God bless you extremely as you seek Him as your everything and your filler of holes that others have made. He longs to scoop you up and make you more His own every day. He wants to be daddy to you. Cry out 'Abba Father'!

The Song of Moses

We took in a cat for some people who had to move. What did our children decide to name it but Moses? Their reasoning was not spiritual, though it may as well have been. This cat is stubborn, pushy, vocal, and disrespectful. However, he is also very useful and amazing. The poor cat has no claws but still manages to catch mice for us. He reminds me that sometimes, things don't happen for us because we're so great and powerful, but because God is and He can use us even with our missing pieces and bad attitudes.

God used Moses....a lot. Moses was an unlikely candidate, I'm sure. He was reluctant, he argued with God, he struggled to like people, he went off on his own a lot, he neglected foundational covenant rules, he lost his temper, etc. Okay, so Moses is a lot like any one of us, right? Except for one thing: Moses really loved God. I mean, you can tell, right? He seemed to have a direct line into the heavens while the rest of Israel walked around like a bunch of bumbling idiots waiting for the next Word. The story of Moses and the Israelites is a VERY human story. The best and the worst of what we can be as humans is smattered all over the Pentateuch. God was so merciful and faithful to continue to use Moses, I think, because Moses just downright was faithful right back to God to continue to press in to hear His voice. I picture him not letting go until he received what he knew was coming from that pillar of fire that was leading them.

I think Moses understood God in a way a lot of us don't. I think he understood that God is a mystery, but even in His mystery, He can be our friend and constant companion. I think Moses let God be His wild, beautiful Self and never, ever set about trying to box Him up or explain Him away. Part of setting a guard over the door of our mouth and not letting any iniquity into our hearts is to be careful about how we think about God. To set a guard over the door of our mouth is to not go around talking about God as if He's this "thing" in our life; and part of not letting iniquity into our hearts is to not be so prideful as to think we can "grab hold" of God. God seems more like the wind, which will likely grab hold of us. He never appeared as a pebble which can be grasped, but rather appeared as fire, as a voice, as a light....things we cannot hold. Even as the Son of Man, no one was able to lay hold of Him or even take His life (He willingly gave it).

I bring all of this up because God has led me into studying Deuteronomy 32. It is a long chapter called "The Song of Moses". I will not write out the whole thing, but I will encourage you to read it....and then read it again. Before the Israelites were to possess the Promised Land, Moses proclaimed this 'song' to them as a warning. It speaks of God's faithfulness and His goodness. It reminds them of their lineage back to Jacob. It then speaks that it is easy when you are so blessed of God to forget from where your blessings came. It speaks then of how the people can be led to worship their new gods, thinking that all that they have, came from this and not from their God who had delivered them. Oh, how important it is to retrace our history and to not get focused on our present too much. Something brought us where we are and we need to remember it. God is so good and faithful that He brings about swift judgement to save the people's hearts from their faithlessness. What He does appears merciless, but I urge you to look deeper and think where the people's hearts would have likely ended up if God had not stepped in to deal with them.

"The Lord will judge his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left, slave or free. He will say: 'Now where are their gods, the rock they took refuge in, the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up to help you! Let them give you shelter! See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver from my hand." -vs. 36-39

Moses finishes with: "Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people." -vs. 43

Daily, my enemy and God alike remind me of my blessings. My enemy will offer me leaven and say,"Look about you at all you have accomplished. Add more! Guard what you have! Strive to continue doing better to earn praises." My God will offer me manna to my soul by saying," Look about you at all I have done for you. I love you and I am good....don't you believe me yet? Give it away so I may give you more. Pace yourself and lean into me so I may direct you. Follow my voice and I will never lead you astray."

Thank you, Lord, for humbling me as you did the Israelites. Blessed be your name for when you pile on the fruitfulness thick and and blessed be your name for when you take away because I was not faithful in a little nor a lot. Blessed also be your name for the billions of chances you give me as you gave Moses. I long to be in that direct line to you, and thank you for taking such a blemished person and using him. Take me, too.

Keep It Simple

"Better a little with righteousness than a huge income with injustice." -Proverbs 16:8

There are now many documentaries on the market about the corrupt food industry. I've watched "Food, Inc." and "Supersize Me" and read numerous books and articles revealing the detestible practices done in large scale farming. Very little of what I would speak about here would be something you didn't know.

I'm not out to bash 'agro-biz' and join a 'go green' rally. However, I believe that each one of us can make a difference in the simple day to day choices we make about how to live ethically. It's a simple fact that to operate your farm the way many 'industrial farms' do is quite literally unjust; it's unjust to the land, it's unjust to the animals, it's unjust to your neighbors, it's unjust to the consumers, and it's unjust to our God who allowed us dominion of the earth He meticulously created. I've been occassionally criticized by hardcore vegans that would like to see all livestock returned to their wild state. To such accusations of misusing property, I would point out that agriculture is a richly blessed profession throughout scripture. It is pure power....and it's up to me how I will wield it.

I don't have to defend my practices. Most small farms are operated with much care and sensitivity to the lives of the animals, and mine is no exception. I care richly for the land and try to consider those who would come after me.

So, I say to you that what God has given you, manage wisely. Manage your estate with care and ethic. It's better to live in a cardboard box with peace and a clean conscience than to dwell in a palace with discord and wickedness. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

God has reduced me so that truly the thing I long for more than anything is to be with Him. I say 'reduce' because when I was a little girl, all I longed for was for myself to be a god. I wanted to be famous, rich, beautiful, and waited on hand and foot. I didn't know what I wanted to be famous for, but that didn't matter. I wish my parents would have had the foresight to rebuke me when I'd speak of my fantasies, but alas, they didn't. To this day, my God is still needing to reduce me. Granted, I don't long to be famous, rich, beautiful, and pampered anymore. I am actually very content and don't strive much for worldly things.

The sin I've recently fallen into is actually to 'strive in my walk'. I have somehow fallen into a pit of believing my walk had everything to do with me. It's an easy pit to fall into. That's why the scriptures say,"Search my heart, O God", because if we spend too much time searching our hearts, we begin to make an idol of our walk. It's God who searches our hearts, God who changes our hearts, God who directs our paths, God who heals, God who speaks, God who justifies us, and God who paid for our victory over the grave 2000 years ago. All I need to do is say,"Yes, Lord."

So I say today,"Lord, adjust my heart. Lord, set your standard. Lord, your son is in me and I am made righteous. Lord, thank you for not adorning me with the things of this world."

Better is fellowship and unity with our Savior than anything else...at all....ever.....

Live Well. God cares what we do. He will teach you how to live righteously. He will extract injustice from our hearts like a snake fang and draw the poison out. Just say,"Yes, Lord."

The Theology of Feet

The most common problem I have ever encountered when I'm looking at someone else's goats is their feet. Many, many people don't trim their hooves often enough. Needless to say, they will grow grossly long and affect how they walk. People have given me their goats in the past (yes, I know, don't look a gift goat in the mouth, right?) and I consistently take notice of the fact that these goats often have seriously deformed feet.

Let me take a moment to admit that I'm very particular about this issue. The first thing I do when I get a new animal is to trim it's feet and give it wormer. Every spring, I catch my sheep and do this, as well. My goats get their hooves trimmed probably every couple of weeks, though. To me, it is one of the easiest things and one of the most beneficial things you can do. To keep a set of feet standing flat on the ground is to set the whole animal straight.

When the hooves are allowed to grow too much, they begin to curve upward. When that happens, the whole of the leg begins to lean backward. This puts stress on their ankles, knees, shoulders, hips, etc. In time, you'll hear the 'clackety-click' of their arthritic joints in response to the deformity. Another problem, is that the sides of the hooves will start to curl under and trap all sorts of garbage on the inside. When that happens, it can easily cause fungal or bacterial growth right on the inside of the hoof. Either way, you'll end up with a lame animal. If your animal is lame, it will not be able to stand to eat, breed, drink or exercise. The feet are quite literally the foundation.

When I think of the implications of overgrown hooves, I think of my own laziness over proper 'trimming' in my life. This world is filthy and corrupt and I'm not impervious to it's vices. If I don't consistently prune back my flesh, my entire alignment will be off. If I allow more of me to grow, I will by my very nature begin to trap junk on the inside of me. Pressing this corrupting matter close to myself, will in turn corrupt my insides. Trimming back my excess will expose what's pressing against me so it can easily fall away instead of becoming trapped to my insides. Allowing too much of me to grow will also simply offset a healthy balance in my life. Something so small as a hoof can throw off the conformation of the entire animal. To compensate for the malformation, the rest of the body must malform itself. I have found that if I allow myself to become less like the image of Christ and more like the image of selfishness, it affects everything around me. My malformation becomes the malformation of my entire sphere of influence. O woe is me when I not only cause myself to stumble, but those around me!

Romans 8:28-31 says,"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called; those he called he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?"

I come to my goats with a pair of hoof trimmers in my hand. I come to trim away their excess so their feet may be conformed to the image of correctness. Their feet were designed to be a certain way, same as we were created and predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. Trimming their hooves is much like the 'justification process' we undergo as sons and daughters of God. When we have submitted to the Lord's trimming, we can stand strong. When we have the image of correctness (Christ), who can stand against us? The answer is 'no one'.

Submit to the Lord. Stand strong. Stumbling will become less of a reality if we do this.

Expectation

"How sweet to my tongue is your promise, truly sweeter than honey in my mouth!"-Psalm 119:103

Why do you trust God? Is it because He's never failed you? Is that something you believe or something you know?

My home has to revolve around a schedule. I go out to the barn to do chores at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. If I ever forget this, my animals will not. Starting at maybe 7:15 a.m. I see the early risers outside begin to stretch, get a drink of water and gaze out from the planks in the fence toward the house to see if what they're longing for might come somewhat early. About 8:30 a.m., almost all of the animals are out and getting some grass from the pasture while they wait. A few especially anxious ones pace the fenceline and call for me. At nine, there is a chorus of "Maaa! Maaa!" coming from the barnyard. Not only I, but the neighbors are hearing this. If I linger until 9:15 or 9:30, then some animals will give up and either go back out on pasture or go back into the barn to mope and doze back off. The rest get cranky and start bawling and pushing their neighbors about to deal with their frustration. What they have here is my promise that my care will be delivered at 9:00 a.m. and they behave accordingly.

The bottle babies bombard the fence with their heads and legs sticking out and their lips twitching in anticipation for their bottle. The milkers assemble themselves in the proper order for milking time. The sheep wail at the top of their lungs knowing that they're last in line. The horses prance back and forth whinnying and pricking their ears in my direction. It's time for feeding and milking and they know it. I don't have an alarm clock in the barn, but they just know it.

When God delivers a word to you, do you eagerly wait and look out for Him? Or are you one who gives up and tries to forget about the gnawing in your soul to be satisfied in His promises? There are some who are lazy, there are some who are mopers, some who get impatient and some who never give up and keep a lookout.

One day, my Lord is going to come. He told me He would. I believe Him. He will come bearing what I've been longing for during the night of my life. How empty and longing I feel sometimes looking out and calling for Him....

But, I shall wait upon my Lord. I will rise up with wings as an eagle because I will not give up. I will not mope. I will not take my frustration out on my neighbor and I will not go try to satisfy myself. He comes bearing goodness and I believe Him.

Somewhere in time is my 9 a.m.....

Oh, how sweet in my mouth is the promise of my Lord. I am proclaiming it to you because it's true. Marana, ta!

Yuck.

Well, I've grown sick and tired
Of trying to stand still;
I've learned to let the wind
Blow me where it will;
To throw myself into the will of the wave.
How can we ever be brave until we're free?
Between the river and the raven I'm fed.
Between oblivion and blazes I'm led.
So Father give me faith
In providence and grace.
Between the river and the ravens I'm fed,
Oh sweet Deliverer, you lift up my head
And lead me in your ways."

-Dustin Kensrue

This song was originally written about trusting God as your provider, but it's altogether about trusting. This popped into my head as I considered blogging about something God has been revealing to me, but I've been reluctant to share. Ah, so I will let the wind of the Holy Spirit blow me where it will and be brave and free of man's opinion, or fear of their reaction.

THIS BLOG COMES WITH A WARNING! THE TITLE 'YUCK' IS APPROPRIATE. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Have you ever known that there was something pure and good that God desired for you, but you didn't pursue it? And instead, you sought a perverted form of comfort that was (at best) sloppy seconds to what nature intended? Have you ever desired something that was very bad for you? Please, don't answer these questions out loud; but if you're brave enough to continue, just do that...

As the routine readers of this blog are aware of, my son received two jersey calves for his sixth birthday. They were wee little babies, fresh from the womb, and we've been bottle raising them. However, as I've begun to reduce the amount of milk they receive to wean them, they've adopted a habit that I'm reluctant to share. They long to drink from the underside of a cow, so they suckle each other's...um....well....they drink each other's pee. They are so stupid, that instinct permeates their brain and the enlightened thought of 'this is not milk, nor an udder, but my friend's salty urine' doesn't occur to them. They will literally let go of the bottle filled with fresh milk to indulge a nutritionless and disgusting pursuit.

Why am I sharing this? Well, because as I cringe and wimper at the sight of it, God speaks to me and says,"Have you forgotten the times you tried to satisfy your desires with something unnatural? This is what it's like."

Oh, dear God! Thank you so much for the VIVID and REPULSIVE and OH SO GRAPHIC reminder that YOU are HOLY and when we don't obtain your best, but satisfy ourselves and settle for the vulgar things that pop into our heads, we are committing A VILE OFFENSE to you!

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles...Although they know God's righteous decreee that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." -Romans 1:21-23 &32.

I know that the illustration above is just about cows and that they will not incur a curse for their stupidity and grossness. However, in this passage of scripture, it reveals that people who turn from God's best and instead give themselves over to unnatural imitations, will be basically waving a flag over their heads drawing the attention of God's wrath. It says that they 'internalize' a curse. God is indeed a loving Lord, compassionate on those who make mistakes. He is merciful enough to give us lots of chances to make the right decisions. There are still natural consequences, though, and it's not okay to do whatever comes into your head. He is also a God of order, and to let your soul become chaotic by being carnal, stupid, and indulgent will bring consequences.

Lord, restore me. Thank you for restoring me so quickly from the time I chose not to walk with you and abide in your wisdom. "Let thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee." Deliver me from YUCK. Amen.