All things are sacred. All things are done as unto God. For they are for him and help us to know him. This is what we were created for. Caretaker-Worshipers. Sin has caused it to be work. Sin has caused the struggle. Sin has caused our desire to not care. Not worship.
Working animals is a gift. The gift of working the land.
Bottle in hand. New calf in arms.
Not an image of motherly love, but a seeming battle has arisen.
The calf needs colostrum. Quick! The only immune system it has. Passed through the mother's mammaries. Passive transfer. Critical!, or sickness and death will surely stalk the shadows and rear their ugly head.
Bottle in hand. New calf in arms. The battle.
Some take easy to their new caregivers.
Others. Well. They would just as soon tear your clothing, and leave you with scars. They see you as wolf.
Some might wonder why calves are removed.
For their health sake. Large amounts of colostrum are critical early. Many of the mothers care not.
This calf rebelled violently.
Hopeless cause? Probably, the tube would be needed. But patience ruled out. We rested. Calf with nipple in mouth.
And waited...
and waited...
the rebellion was continuous but mostly simply resistive.
...for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.Time wore on, as did the persuasion. And I couldn't help think this is often the reality of our hearts as people.
-Jeremiah 2:13
God has good in store for us. But we prefer to receive it not from him.
We rail against God. We lay stone faced. We know better. Our way is right.
We are strong. No one needs to bottle feed us. We can find our own life giving food. We for sure will not receive a gift freely given.
Then (unlike this particular moment and feeding) we get a taste of that which is good, He whom brings and is LIFE and we can't get enough. We have caught the flavor of God. And He is the good news. He is the hope we live for. His is that which fills us till we can hardly stand. We long to just rest and
enjoy His presence and follow wherever he leads. Hoping it is to more of Him!
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water....Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
-John 4:10,13,14
Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"
-John 7:37,38
