"I'd love for you to meet my pigmy goats, Mark and Luke." says author Donna Partow. "A lot of people think they are just dumb stubborn animals. Well, come to think of it, I guess they are. They aren't particularly useful either. I can't milk them (they're both males as you may have guessed by their names.) I wouldn't dream of slaughtering them for their meat. They can't bark if a prowler shows up on the premises. They eat everything in sight...especially my husband's prize rosebushes. My husband cannot for the life of him figure out what I see in these goats. He says they are useless, and when I think about it rationally I must admit he's right.
But I don't care. I love them to pieces anyway. I call them my babies, and I enjoy spending time with them. My favorite time of the day is our morning climb. Each day I hope against hope that this is the day we can climb without resistance, without delays and detours. Those days are rare indeed.
You see, the house next door is under construction. And like most construction sites, it's an eternal mess. Styrofoam coffee cups, fast food restaurant wrappings, wood scraps, nails. You get the picture. For some inexplicable reason my goats find this trash heap irresistibly appealing. They'd rather wallow in the mess than follow me to higher ground.
Sometimes all I have to do is coax them back on to the path. Sometimes I bribe them with their favorite honey-and-grain mix. Some days I actually pick them up. Then there are those days when I have to take a tree limb and do some serious persuasion.
As you can imagine, the workmen think I'm a lunatic. I'm sure they wonder, Why on earth does she bother with those dumb animals? Why doesn't she just leave them alone and let them enjoy the trash heap? Good questions.
It's because I know something the workmen don't know. I know that despite all their protests, once I take my goats to the mountain-top they remember: This is what they were created to do. And when we get to the top of that mountain, as I sit on my prayer rock overlooking the valley, the goats are filled with joy. They leap from rock to rock, then come snuggling up to me, as if to say, How can we thank you enough for reminding us who we really are?
One day as I sat on my rock thinking, I realized, I'm just like those goats! God wants to take me to higher ground. But I resist him. Even though I know the joy and tranquility I experience when I climb the mountain to fellowship with God, how many days do I ignore his call? How often do I prefer the trash heap to the mountaintop?
I guess I'm just as dumb as those goats. Often I'm just as useless. Yet God loves me and longs to fellowship with me, just as he longs to fellowship with you. God is calling us to higher ground. Will we resist? Or will we follow willingly?"
(This is from the book Living in Absolute Freedom by Donna Partow.)
