The Goat Got Out and the Fence Got Fixed

I had a plan for that Saturday and the plan was a good one.

I was going to mend the north fence, which had needed mending since spring, and then I was going to sit down. That was the whole plan. Two parts. I had told Toby about it at breakfast in the tone of a man announcing something official.

At about nine in the morning Bucky went through the gate that I had definitely latched, walked the length of the vegetable patch, and ate the tops off every single carrot in a straight line, like he was reading them.

So I hollered the boy's full name, which is what I do, and we spent the next four hours going after that goat. And in the going after him we came out past the west corner where nobody walks, and that is where I found the post. Rotted clean through at the base. Leaning on nothing but habit. One good push from a cow and the whole west run comes down in the night and every animal I own is on the road.

I never would have looked at that post. It was not on my list. My list said north fence.

Toby thought this was the greatest thing that had ever happened. He told me Bucky saved the cows. I said Bucky ate my carrots. We are both right, and I have had a long time to think about which one of us was more right, and I do not enjoy the answer.

Who God picks, and He is not being kind about it

There is a sentence in Paul's letter to Corinth that sounds like a compliment until you read it slowly.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. (1 Corinthians 1:27)

He does not say God also uses weak things. He says God chose them, on purpose, and He chose them to confound the strong ones. That is not God making do. That is God selecting deliberately, and the next verse gives His reason:

That no flesh should glory in his presence. (1 Corinthians 1:29)

So the choosing is not sentimental. It is strategic. If the strong one had done it, everybody would have known exactly who to thank, and it would not have been Him.

You are not picked as a second choice. You are picked the way God has always picked, on purpose, so that when it works there is only one place the credit can go. That is 1 Corinthians 1 word for word, and it is His Spirit rather than anybody's opinion of you who makes it stick.

And notice that the verb never changes across the whole list. Chosen, chosen, chosen. Not accommodated, not permitted, not tolerated.

You have been chosen with a word that means deliberate preference and nothing weaker. 1 Corinthians 1:27 uses it twice in one verse, and the Holy Spirit is what moves that from a fact on a page into a chest that has been carrying something for years.

Gideon counted himself out and God kept going

There is a man in the book of Judges who does the arithmetic on himself out loud, and it is honest arithmetic.

An angel calls him a mighty man of valor while he is hiding in a winepress threshing wheat so nobody will see him. And Gideon's answer is a list of reasons the angel has the wrong house:

Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. (Judges 6:15)

Poorest family in the tribe. Youngest in the family. He is not being modest, he is being accurate.

God does not argue with the facts. He does not tell Gideon he is stronger than he thinks. He says something else entirely:

And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee. (Judges 6:16)

And then, because this is the point, God makes Gideon's army smaller. Twenty two thousand go home, then all but three hundred, and the reason is stated plainly: lest Israel say mine own hand hath saved me (Judges 7:2).

God is not looking for the strongest thing in the field. He is looking for somebody He can be with, and you have already been found by Him. Judges 6 says the LORD is with thee before it says anything else, and it is His Spirit who makes being with somebody count for more than being strong.

You were never asked to argue with the arithmetic about yourself. Judges 6:15 lets a man say the true small thing out loud without one word of correction, and the Spirit of God is what makes that read as being met rather than as being humored.

The one nobody called in from outside

When Samuel comes to anoint a king, a father lines up his sons, and one boy is not in the line because nobody thought to send for him. He is out with the sheep, doing the job you give the one who is least needed indoors.

Samuel looks at the oldest, who is tall and impressive, and God says something worth reading twice:

Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)

They have to go and get David out of a field. The whole ceremony waits for the one nobody counted.

You have not been filed by the people who did the counting. 1 Samuel 16:7 puts the Lord's sightline somewhere else entirely, and the Holy Spirit is what turns that from an admired sentence into a fact somebody walks out of a room on.