Out Our Way: Along the Covenant Trail with Goliath

Out our way, being a farmer or a rancher requires a good deal more than knowing about soil, seed, livestock and land management. The modern farmer/rancher now has to deal with machinery that is constantly in need of maintenance and repairs. That is why the modern farmer/rancher doesn't just read the "Farmer's Almanac" but also the various owner manuals that come with each machine.

I recall working cows with Charlie on a fairly well known rancher's spread and us both being so glad we were only dealing with cows and occasionally skittish or obstinent horses. We rode the back country looking for strays that the main party had missed as they were rounding up the herd. Charley and I brought in some 50 head while the main group drove several hundred. They were not on horse back - but on ATVs. You could hear them a mile away as they revved the engines and kept the big herd moving.

That is, until one of the ATVs quit. I don't know what the problem was, but the rider was cussing up one side and down the other at the machine. He was looking over the motor and fiddling with wires and such trying to get oit going, but it wouldn't budge. I am not sure what the problem was but he got out some tools and fiddled with it for some time and got it started again. Man. was I glad I was on horseback - for I am the world's worst mechanic! But that is the new west.

Some problems - like the ATV's strange behavior - cannot be predicted, but other problems can be avoided if you have read the owner's manual and paid attention to the maintenance. That's why the manufacturer provides it - to help us avoid the avoidable problems we shouldn't have to deal with. Of course, we are free to ignore the manual, not do the maintenance and refuse to accept the manufacturer's guidance. After all, we may think we know more about machinery that the folks who designed and built it. However there are consequences - and it isn't the manufacturer's fault if we ignored the manual and ended up stranded with a broken-down machine.

We have just completed a study of the 10 Commandments and, as you may recall, there are some folks who feel God has no right to tell us how to live. What they fail to understand is that these commandments are "the owner's manual" given to us for our benefit.

 Some may be offended that Ford or GM tells us "Thou shall change thy oil every 3,000 miles" or "thou shall not put regular gasoline into thy diesel truck," just as some are offended God says "thou shall not steal, murder, commit perjury etc." And those who reject the 10 Commandments as "a bunch of rules" end up like those who toss the owner's manual in the trash; broken down, stranded, and ver likely in trouble.

Many theologians and great thinkers have suggested that hell is not God's choice, but ours. We make choices every day and those choices have consequences. If you choose to drive 150 MPH on "Going to the Sun" up in Glacier Park on a rainy day - it won't be the Park Service's decision to "punish" you for breaking the speed limit that sends over the cliff ... but your own bad choices. That is why there are speed limit signs on the road ... not to push us around, but to keep us and others safe.

The great British writer C.S. Lewis wrote a book titled "The Great Divorce" in which he tells the story of a man who took a "field trip to hell and to heaven." Nobody was "sent to hell" - they simply chose to go there and remain there. In the book there is a daily bus taking people from hell to heaven if they want to go - and most do not. They choose to remain in the darkness and misery they have created for themselves rather than accept the abundant life God offers them.

Some take the trip and get to heaven but quickly decide it is too hard and requires too much effort. It is so much easier to stay bottled up inside oneself than to break free and start to grow. Better to remain locked up in the cocoon of our own making for eternity than to become a butterfly and soar forever in the garden of God.

God created us for life abundant - to become butterflies. That's what the owners manual is all about - how to move out of the cocoon, spread your wings and truly fly.

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Out Our Way features horse sense theology as shared by Doc Goliath and his slow-witted but determined pupil, John Bruington. These stories are available online at http://www.havrepres.org - and may also be found in the book "Out Our Way - Theology Under the Saddle" available at Amazon.