Horse Thug Life

Sometimes I pace myself by singing hymns and praise songs when I walk, and if I sing loudly, it helps me wake up, and  it tricks the lazy dogs into thinking I'm calling them to eat instead of walk.  Ten Thousand Reasons really helps me step out. This morning when I got to the bottom of our hill, which is across from the neighbors' horse pasture, (they rescue and rehabilitate abandoned horses), I learned that an up-tempo version of Amazing Grace is not in the Horse Top Ten.  The three or four horses lying in the grass jumped up like they'd been shocked with an electric cattle prod, and the ones grazing in the trees came snorting out, ready to do battle with God-only-knows-what.  The two donkeys that were guarding them snapped to attention and took up their positions at the wire and dared me to keep coming if I wanted to see what would happen.  Clearly, these were not Christian horses.  Or maybe they just don't want me for their alarm clock! 

In a previous post I mentioned that ranchers and farmers sometimes use donkeys to protect their livestock from coyotes and other predators. When you consider that a cow  might weigh 1,000 pounds, and an average horse weighs in the neighborhood of around 800 pounds, the idea either one of them needs a 500 pound donkey to protect them from a 40-pound coyote seems counterintuitive.  

Donkeys don't attract a lot of positive attention.  Mostly, we make fun of them – for one thing, their ears are too big.  In the story of Pinocchio, a smart squirrel warns him that "boys who are lazy, and take a dislike to books, to schools, to masters, and who pass their time in amusement" eventually turn into donkeys - with long ears as the first warning sign.  In short, they turn into thugs:  and braying, ill-tempered, aggressive donkeys are the thugs of the horse-world.  They are pretty much all the things that anyone would want in a bodyguard.

Donkeys carry the load for people in a lot of the world, especially places where walking is hazardous.  Once on vacation, our ship docked at Santorini on a gray, rainy day with rough seas that tossed the ship-to-shore tenders around enough to cause most of the passengers to stay on the ship, but My Gift From God braved the shore excursion, because after all, he'd paid for it, and why should a little barf-inducing tempest cause him to waste a hundred bucks?  Once ashore, while most of the other sightseers were slipping and falling on the muddy vertical path from the beach to town, MGFG wisely chose a sure-footed donkey and arrived wet but unscathed.  I know this is true because I saw the picture in the bar afterwards. 

We think of ancient kings riding astride white stallions, or in chariots pulled by thoroughbreds, but the kings of ancient Israel rode donkeys.  I suppose it would be like the difference between a Rolls Royce and a Jeep:  If you're leading an army into battle in the Judean wilderness, you need armor-plated four-wheel drive, not a flashy chrome-wheeled chariot. (Ask Pharaoh about that.)  And, of course, Jesus rode a donkey on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, a move that would signal not only that he was coming as a king, but that his ride was made from parts assembled in Israel and not in Rome.  

When Jesus needed that donkey he told the disciples to find and bring one that was tied up, and if anyone asked them why they were taking it, to say that "the Lord has need of it,"  (Luke 19:31).

These days if you ask a random church member what he or she thinks the Lord needs, they're likely to respond, "More butts in the pews"; but ask a pastor or other leader the same question, and they'll tell you that what He (and they) really need is a lot more asses: not just pew-sitters, but more donkey-disciples who are willing to shoulder the load and help the Kingdom of God "forcefully advance," (Matt. 11:12).  He has need of more people willing to line up at the fence when the unsuspecting flock is threatened and say, "This far, but no further," without caring whether or not people are going to call them asses, (Titus 1:9-11). He has need of more people to load up on compassion and carry it on rocky paths to a needy world (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

Some folks call a boorish person an "ass" when they want to be insulting.  But really, the donkeys of the world should be insulted when their name is used in vain.  The Lord has need of you.

"Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." 
I Corinthians 1:26-27