The Story of Spoon

My husband, Joe, has a Border Collie named Spoon that is a goat herder. He lived in a pen by himself, but next to one of our son's show goats.

Spoon got plenty of exercise, running with my husband often, plus herding the goats from time to time, but lately Spoon had been getting out of his pen and coming to the house to visit.

A few weeks ago, Spoon got out and ran to over to a field that has some of our older goats, plus two Great Pyrenees goat dogs, named Ranger and Chow. Also in that field is a neighbors' horse!

So now Spoon lives with the two other dogs, two old goats, and a horse that is visiting for a while. What a neat blended family!

This story makes me smile!  The thought that Spoon wanted to live somewhere else is so interesting to me!  Spoon didn't ever live with those other goats, or the other dogs, or the horse.  But the really interesting thing is that from his pen, he couldn't even see that field!  Maybe when he got out he saw it. Maybe that's how he became interested in that other field.  Maybe he knew that was where he belonged.  It just felt right.

Now, I'm not saying if you are feeling like something is wrong in your home you should leave! Not at all!  But, let's make a spiritual application to Spoon's story.

We can think of the big, open field as the church.  The church is world-wide, established on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.  Many spend their lives searching and searching for something, yet they don't know what.  They are searching for God....for Jesus.  They want to belong to Him, but they just may not yet realize it.  When they do, they are added, by Him, to the church.  When one gives their life to Jesus, follows God with their whole heart, and becomes a part of the church, he/she feels at home, at peace, and content.

Spoon is content, apparently.  He could choose to leave.  He could go anywhere he wanted to go, and we wouldn't be able to stop him.  But most likely he won't.  Apparently he loves his home.  He didn't feel comfortable in his own life. He wanted a new life.  He has new friends.  Not friends that look just like him, but friends who apparently 'love' him and accept him, as well.

That's what the Lord's church is designed to be like, as well.  A home for forgiven sinners, who love each other, who love the church.  The new Christian has a new life.  The new Christian has a new family - their brothers and sisters in Christ.  And he/she feels comfortable because they are surrounded by that new family and because they are in a close relationship with their Heavenly Father and their Savior.

THAT story makes me smile! :)

We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sinmight be done away with,^[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 

Romans 6:2-8

Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
1 Peter 1:21-23