What is best...

I weeded the garden today. It was an arduous task. Not simply because of the weeds that have staked a claim in every inch of unoccupied soil after the blessed rains – but because of all of the good plants. Weeds are easy enough to identify and mark as unwanted. It is the “good plants” or the volunteers, as my grandma called them, which try me. A volunteer is a plant that regenerates the following year that wasn’t intentionally sown. They’re quite random, appearing in places most unsuitable. Last year we had a bountiful crop of tomatoes. It was beyond bountiful – it was overabundant. We could not eat, preserve or gift them fast enough. As a result, some of the fruit fell to the ground. The soil was tilled - the seed was scattered – and now there are volunteers throughout the garden.

Hundreds of beautiful tomato plants are growing in the rows of beans, peas, carrots, onions, squash. They had grown so well that I could no longer discern what was planted through the tomatoes. Again they flourished, this time to the detriment of everything else I planted. You see, I had already given half of my garden to planting tomatoes…and with the help of my volunteers, the entire plot had been overtaken. Up until today, I left them there. Because a tomato plant is a good plant. I didn’t have the heart to uproot it. But my garden was meant to be more than tomatoes, even though tomatoes are good. As I carefully weeded around the neat rows and the random tomatoes, I remembered a verse of scripture about choosing what is best. You see, keeping everything good in my garden was choking out what was best. In a row of carrots, carrots are best, no matter how good a tomato might be. When I commit to planting carrots, my aim should be to harvest carrots.

This is not the first time I have encountered this lesson on the farm. At one time we kept both Soay and Icelandic sheep. I loved them both. Both had qualities that not only made them suitable, but endearing to me. I did not want to ask the question “which is best?” because I did not want to choose. Keeping them both cost me dearly. The flocks could run together for the most part of the year, but breeding season presented many challenges, which I could have avoided entirely, had I made a choice. As does happen, one of my best rams escaped his pen, and covered ewes that had not been assigned to him. Not just any ewes. The Grand Champion ewes, which were to have been bred to the Grand Champion ram. Rather than the outstanding lambs we anticipated, we reaped a harvest of crossbred lambs, as the ram was not only unassigned, he was not the same breed as the ewes. The lambs are good lambs, but they are not a faithful representation of either breed. They are not authentic. They can never be the best for the purposes their parents were bred for. The same is true of us when we refuse to choose…we are only a half-hearted servant of either cause.

Making a choice is always difficult, for when we commit to one thing, we must, at the same time, say no to the other options – even if they are good. It is only by honoring a commitment in this way, that we can truly have what is best. So often in life, we are overwhelmed as my garden was, by allowing everything that is good, rather than focusing what is best. Good things clutter up our lives and our calendars – leaving little time or energy for that which is best. We soon find ourselves inadequate to fulfill any of the tasks set before us. Our limited energy and resources are spread so thin, that nothing we do is done well. No one is well-served when we try to have it all or be it all. We become discouraged…all because we lacked the courage to make a choice.

There are many decisions before us in a day. So many questions and opportunities…but we should not be asking ourselves “is this a good thing?” but rather, “is this best?” Is this the best of what is available to me now? Is this the best time, or would it be better to wait? Is this the best place, or should it be elsewhere? Is this the best use of my time, or is there something else I should be giving myself to? Is this the best use of my talent? Is this the best way to say what needs to be said? We must have the courage to commit to what is best, and focus our energies on those things...

With regret, I have pulled and placed my lovely volunteers on the compost pile. Choosing is not easy. Now there are empty spaces between the rows and between the plants. Healthy empty spaces that give them room to grow, seek the sun, extend their roots and draw nourishment from the unobstructed soil around them. Restful places. These empty places will be covered with mulch to protect them, so that nothing takes root there to draw away from or overshadow the young plants.

In order for us to be our best, we need to do the same with the cares and preoccupations of this world. What do you aim to harvest from this life? What have you committed to?

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11

Sheep Shells

Just before Thanksgiving, I was blessed with a small flock of Icelandic sheep – a new bloodline to add to my existing flock. They are absolutely gorgeous! That is, I knew they would be absolutely gorgeous underneath the thick armored plates of matted, filthy wool. I don’t know how long it had been since they were shorn – or if they had ever been shorn.

They were fairly wild – having been allowed the freedom to roam through vast acres of woodland. They had little experience of a shepherd’s touch or voice. They were unaccustomed to being led, and would not follow of their own accord – so moving them was quite a challenge. They were lured over a period of days and finally trapped in a shed. Catching them in the shed was simple enough – as they panicked they drove themselves into a corner – making it difficult for any of them to escape. Thankfully, their captor (me) was friendly.

Within a few hours, we had them penned in a stall in our barn, in quarantine. It grieved me to see them in that condition. It was all I could do to hold back the shears and allow them to settle in before attempting to remove the fleece a few days later. Once they found the stall safe, the food ample and my voice familiar we mustered our courage and determined it was time to get to work.

Equipped with a couple of dematting tools and my daughter – the designated sheep holder – we were ready to begin, believing that we would simply comb them out. The moment we laid hands on them it was painfully clear that we had underestimated the task. Our fingers could not penetrate the felted wool to the sheep beneath. I grabbed scissors from the tack stall and attempted to cut through the dense folds to no avail.

As we examined them, we saw that near their joints, there were shallow creases that I could work the scissors into. I felt like I was prying oyster shells to find the pearls inside! Once the plates were split – the arduous task of trimming the hair underneath could begin. It was amazing how heavy the plates were! One sheep had a felted roll around her neck that had taken the shape and thickness of a tractor tire. It had attached itself to the plates along her sides – making them impossible to remove. The scissors would not penetrate the “tire” and it would not pull over her head sweater-style. I resorted to the hoof shears and snipped my way through – an eighth of an inch at a time. When I made the last cut, the collar burst open with an amazing release of pressure. What it must have felt like to this sheep to be freed from a noose of felted wool! Not only was it extremely heavy, but it had grown increasingly close to her skin, interfering with her movement, and constricting her neck, as felted wool has no stretch.

I was astounded by the behavior of one sheep in particular. She had resisted being caught and held, and it was everything my daughter could do to restrain her. Despite my best efforts, there was no hurrying the process. Each hair had to be cut blindly working the scissors underneath the mat, without catching the tender skin of the sheep. We were halfway through one side, feeling the weight of the mat and trying to support it and cut as it was freed from her – when she knelt – and then completely surrendered, laying in my daughter’s lap. The pain from the hanging plates of wool eased, and the tension that the three of us felt vanished. She was no longer struggling and being restrained, but was peacefully resting, completely submitting to our care. What a difference it made.

The Bible teaches in parables and compares us to sheep. And how like sheep we are! We find ourselves in the most trying predicaments and allow ourselves to be reduced to the most pathetic conditions, because for as independent as we think we are, we can be quite helpless. There was nothing the sheep could do to improve their unfortunate circumstances, until a shepherd came to care for them. Thankfully there is also a God who loves us too much to leave us the way he finds us, and has given us a Shepherd.

I found myself thinking of this verse from the Bible, as I clipped though the tangled mats:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1

How like sin those mats are! A couple of hairs get crossed and tangle, then a few more get involved, and before long it is difficult to see one from another, and soon there is a mat. No longer can it be combed out or untangled – it must be cut free for the sheep to move freely again. Sins have a way of accumulating in much the same fashion – one to cover up for another. Without repentance, or turning away from the sin, we are doomed to repeat it. Once we become ensnared by sin, we too forget what it is like to move freely. We are caught in our shame and regret – covered with a seemingly impenetrable armor like the mats on sheep. We start to believe the lie that tells us that because we have failed, we are a failure, and there is a weight upon us.

Thankfully God doesn’t see us through human eyes, but through the eyes of love – in Christ – our Good Shepherd. If we will submit to his leading, and yield to his care, he will tenderly shear the sin and shame from our lives. Just like my sheep, we can be made new! The beautiful creation we were meant to be can be redeemed and liberated in forgiveness…we can have new identities in Christ, made whole and perfect and presentable to God.

If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17