“Fences”
My wife and I used to live in south Alabama. We owned ten acres of land. We had chickens and some sheep. Chickens have natural enemies and so do sheep. Chickens seem to enjoy staying close to the house when we let them out to feed. Although they have to watch out for hawks. Their house is protected at night with fences around it to keep out raccoons and opossums that love southern fried chicken. The sheep have free reign to graze. Sheep have natural enemies also, such as dogs and coyotes. Our property had legal boundaries, of course the sheep don’t care where they start or stop. So we put fences around it. Now some of the sheep were perfectly fine with that, but a few were not. I spent a lot of time cultivating the fields, to provide fresh grass for them. To my surprise, that was not good enough for some.
Now, to Alice, why did I call her Alice? Well she reminded me of one of the people I used to Pastor. He only did what was right if he had to. Life can be real tough for a sheep like that and me too.
We had two fields. I would put the sheep into the other field at times for fresh grass. Seems like they would like that and they did, all except, Alice. All moved to the other field easily except her. I tried to gently walk around her, to ease her along. She stomped her foot, snorted and took off to the other end of the field. So, I tried that again, same response. I have always known that you can’t herd sheep, you have to lead them, but somehow that day, I forgot. I felt that strange old Irish temper begin to raise it’s ugly head and I started herding. I knew I shouldn’t start running, but I did. She would run all the way around the field right past the gate. I was getting hot, sweaty, tired and started getting winded. The sheep in the other field were watching in utter amazement at me or Alice, I didn’t know which. Well, winded, sweaty and tired I started yelling, you stupid #!!#. I finally came to my senses and remembered the popcorn tree and how much sheep love the leaves and their berries. I hobbled over and broke a limb off and Alice came a runnin, I walked into the other field with her following right behind me. Sometimes it’s hard being a shepherd, if you know what I mean. I wondered then, if God had that problem with me at times.
One day I was watching Alice, in the other field. She was watching some dogs going down the road. I thought, to her these dogs were free to go wherever they wanted. That life looks so glamorous, with no worries. The word “acuma-ma-tada” came to mind, as in the movie, The Lion King, meaning, no worries. She was not satisfied with the grass that I had spent so much time on, planting just for her. She wanted what was on the other side of the fence. To me, she looked at the fence wrongly. To her the fence meant restriction. The only thing on my mind when I built it was protection. While watching her sticking her head through the fence one day, I saw a dog charging toward her. She jerked and jerked and barely got her head inside before the dog hit the fence. Close call!
Sheep have to have fences for protection, that’s the law. They look at them as restriction. They have the fence protection law. Now, we sheep have boundaries, not fences. The difference between we sheep and them sheep is, we love the boundaries and they don’t. Now if we sheep try to live by the fence law, things can get pretty tough. Those sheep now, are never satisfied with the fence. If we sheep try to live by that law, dog days are coming.
As christian sheep we no longer live by the law of fences and death, but we do live within the boundary line of the Chief Shepherds, Property. When I built the fence around our boundary line, it was for protection and not restriction. The same is with God. The sheep would not need the fences if they loved to stay within the boundary. But they are sheep and we are a free sheep in His pasture. We love His boundaries, don’t we?
Alice’s life didn’t end well, she didn’t love the fences or the boundary. The pastures of our Shepard are pleasant and we love to graze there. Though we see the so called glamorous life outside, our grass and water are good. I remember what outside the fence was like. Don’t you?
The boundaries of our Shepard are good instructions that we love and that’s why we don’t have fence law. And by the way, we own the property within our boundaries. It’s our inheritance and our Shepherd lives here and walks among us. He is our protector and the cultivator of our food. We don’t need fence law, only boundaries.
The law was nailed to the cross with our Shepherd and the boundaries were opened wide.
Psalms: 23 – Paraphrased
The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want,
He makes me to lie down in green pastures:
He leads me beside still water,
He restores my soul: He leads me in paths that
are right, for his name’s sake.
Yes, though I walk through the valley of Shadow death, I
will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff
they shall comfort me.You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies: you anoint my head
with oil; my cup runs over. ( I am overwhelmed )
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the lord for ever.
David McClary
avoicefromthemountain.com