I am a beekeeper, and today I was setting up the machinery that I use to remove the honey from the honey boxes. The machine I was working on in specific is called an uncapper. To operate the uncapper I have to manually remove the frames from the box and put them through the machine. I tell you this because the original owner of it had lengthened the legs and that made it uncomfortable for me to work at that height, so as a farmer and a jack-of-all-trades I decided how high I wanted it and cut off the the extra.
I cut the legs out from under it..... to make it better.
This concept got me to thinking, how many times did God do just that to the Hebrews? How many times did their legs grow too long for the path that God had set before them? Only to have God come and cut at them to remove the extra they had added that prevented them from being usable. Never to harm, though it did hurt, it was only ever for their own good.
And what about us? Should we not ask for the same treatment? Is it not to our benefit to have our legs cut out from under us when we need it? It would of course be better for us to walk the the pat God gave us, but we are sinful in nature and are prone to stray.
I've seen paintings of Jesus with a lamb slung over his shoulders, a beautiful image of our Lord and Savior "bringing the lost lamb home". But there is more of a story to that image. You see when a Shepard gets a lamb that is prone to wander too far afield, and he finds it, he catches it and then reaches out and breaks one of the front legs, "cuts the legs out from under". The story, never fear, does not end there. He takes this little broken lamb up on his shoulders and carries it back to the flock, not to release it and let it fend for itself, but to bring it to his camp site and start to "bututa" it (bututa is a Plautdietsch word my mother would use to describe the way a parent nurses and tends a sick or emotionally dejected child), to bring it's body to wholeness once again. Tending to it's every need being certain that it wanted for nothing. By the time the fractured limb is mended well enough to be returned to the flock it has forgotten that the Shepard was the one who broke the leg in the first place. All the little lamb remembers is the care that the Shepard had lavished on it and it then stays close to it's savour. I don't pretend to claim this analogy is fully scriptural, but some of it is and thus something to learn from.
I think maybe those of us who stray easily (me being chief among them) should be praying for a few cut or broken legs and the healing of God that comes after. I think maybe a few broken or cut legs could be good for my country and some others out there. Maybe instead of asking for judgement on others we should be asking for judgement on ourselves so that God can heal us.
I cut the legs out from under it..... to make it better.
This concept got me to thinking, how many times did God do just that to the Hebrews? How many times did their legs grow too long for the path that God had set before them? Only to have God come and cut at them to remove the extra they had added that prevented them from being usable. Never to harm, though it did hurt, it was only ever for their own good.
And what about us? Should we not ask for the same treatment? Is it not to our benefit to have our legs cut out from under us when we need it? It would of course be better for us to walk the the pat God gave us, but we are sinful in nature and are prone to stray.
I've seen paintings of Jesus with a lamb slung over his shoulders, a beautiful image of our Lord and Savior "bringing the lost lamb home". But there is more of a story to that image. You see when a Shepard gets a lamb that is prone to wander too far afield, and he finds it, he catches it and then reaches out and breaks one of the front legs, "cuts the legs out from under". The story, never fear, does not end there. He takes this little broken lamb up on his shoulders and carries it back to the flock, not to release it and let it fend for itself, but to bring it to his camp site and start to "bututa" it (bututa is a Plautdietsch word my mother would use to describe the way a parent nurses and tends a sick or emotionally dejected child), to bring it's body to wholeness once again. Tending to it's every need being certain that it wanted for nothing. By the time the fractured limb is mended well enough to be returned to the flock it has forgotten that the Shepard was the one who broke the leg in the first place. All the little lamb remembers is the care that the Shepard had lavished on it and it then stays close to it's savour. I don't pretend to claim this analogy is fully scriptural, but some of it is and thus something to learn from.
I think maybe those of us who stray easily (me being chief among them) should be praying for a few cut or broken legs and the healing of God that comes after. I think maybe a few broken or cut legs could be good for my country and some others out there. Maybe instead of asking for judgement on others we should be asking for judgement on ourselves so that God can heal us.
