Yesterday I was working down at the salebarn – selling kine (the plural for cow – bet you didn’t know that!), 2 sheep, and one horse.  It was a usual sale – people come & drop off their animals, they go into the ring, are sold, then I pen them back.  My job is relatively simple.  I have a map in front of me, and when a buyer purchases an animal I call out the pen number the animal is to go in over a PA system.  The people doing the actual work then release the animal into the alley and they guide it to the pen.  Simple.

Well, there was a cow waiting to be penned back – I had called out the number and it was sitting on the scale waiting to go.  But it wasn’t going.  She was rather grumpy.  This girl was in there trying to get the cow to move but she wouldn’t budge.  I go back there and try to help from a safe distance, waving my hat and yelling to get the cow’s attention.  All of the sudden she drops her head and bolts after the girl on the scale.  The girl’s eyes got as big and round as tea saucers and she turned tail and ran.  So I’m standing there helpless as a girl is being chased down by an angry cow.  Now, this girl was quick – I’ve never seen anybody move so quick in my life.  She hit a gate and leapt up it like a frog, and the cow turned down the alley.  This girl knew the danger behind her, chasing after her, and she did all she could to avoid it.

My prayer life is in recovery right now, and the best I can do is journal to God, which is what I’ve been doing for almost two months now, every day.  It’s been helpful to actually write down what I’m praying about and it’s nice to look back and see the progress God has been making in my life.  I related the above story to God and told him how thankful I was that the girl wasn’t injured.

And it hit me: why is it that when we see danger in our spiritual lives we don’t turn tail and run to God?  Why is it that we usually sit back and let the sin, the evil, Satan plow us over and injure us so badly?  I cannot imagine the pain and hurt that girl would be in today if she had been hit by that cow.  But I know the pain and hurt that I feel when sin & evil run me over.  And yet, it hasn’t been enough to make me do my best to avoid sin altogether.  I keep going back and trying to face it on my own and it always plows me over like a train hitting an old Volkswagen Beetle.  I’m torn, beaten, shredded – destroyed again and again.  God comes along, puts me back together, and I go out again to do the same thing.

I suppose it’s my humanness that makes me head back in the same direction again and again and again and again.   But I’m tired of using that excuse.  I’m tired of having to put God through the torment of having to watch me crash over and over again.  I’m sure each time I do it he throws his hands up in the air, “Seriously, Sheth!  Come on!  We’ve been through this before!”  Maybe I’m a slow learner.

I’m trying my best to avoid the cow in my life that wants to run me down.  I’m trying to avoid sin, evil, Satan.  It’s tough, that’s for sure, especially in a world that is devoted to promoting it.  But I’ll keep a watchful eye so I can turn tail and run like the girl and head for safety in a split second.

much love. sheth.