Alright, so I was driving into work this morning and I turned off Moreland Dr. onto Rock Springs Road heading towards I-26...you with me? Maybe not, cause you might not live in Kingsport, TN. But anyway, hang with me. My eyes were drawn to the fields off to my left...I confess, I love a pastoral scene...the early morning light playing off the glistening fields of frost....Anyway, I look over and there was a coyote running through the cow field! That's an odd enough sight, especially at 08:00am (coyotes are typically nocturnal in densely populated human areas, of which I count my neighborhood one). Except this one time there was a coyote in my neighborhood that made it's home in a drainage ditch? We were on a walk one night and this neighbor (who I don't know well) asked me if I had the guts to shoot it if need be.
No joke he said, "You ever shot anything before? You got the guts to shoot an animal???"
Mildly offended, but also bemused cause this dude had no clue who I was, "Uhhhh....yeah...once or twice." I guess the loafers fooled him!
Anyway, I see this coyote running through a cow field. And it was the weirdest thing! The cows were completely unfazed. Granted, they are much larger than a coyote and would 1000% win a fight one-on-one (unless it has dynamite, which is a totally separate problem). Apparently the coyote agreed though, and had zero dynamite, because as I said, it was running. And to be clear, nothing was chasing it. But it apparently knew it was one swift kick away from meeting it's demise. Or it was running to get dynamite. You tell me.
Anyway, the thought strikes me - what made the difference here in this natural struggle for survival? It's not that a single coyote is going to take down a cow. But I have heard those coyotes at night and there's way more than one in those woods. And a pack of coyotes could definitely take down one of the young calves in that field - no dynamite necessary. So what gives? Why was that coyote running and the cows couldn't care less?
It's all about the herd.
Here's my point (I do have one, promise): we have been told that we need to be rugged individualists. This is the American way after all. You can do this (whatever this is) on your own and it's weak to need people. More than that, it's wrong, to some degree, to bother other people with your problems.
That is one way of living your life. But it is not the way of Jesus. Jesus called followers. Jesus allowed himself to need people. He formed a community of people around him and commissioned them to form other communities who would continue this movement. Hear the word of the Lord (via the Apostle, Paul): “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2, NIV)
Friends, the law of the Kingdom, the law of Christ, is LOVE. And love requires other people. You are not meant to go through life alone. But neither do you need to fret and worry and pine for being "in" or "out". I love the way CS Lewis put this in his essay, The Inner Ring (and here I paraphrase): just do stuff you enjoy with people you enjoy!
You need people and you need to let people (not everyone, but definitely someone) into your inner life. Otherwise, you're like a baby cow surrounded by a pack of coyotes. Or, maybe, like a coyote running through a cow field. Either way, no dynamite.
Get some spiritual friends around you and live your life with them. This will be a big theme for us as we head into 2022 - but more on that another day.
コメント