Untamed Animals

"Now then, get a new cart ready, with two cows that have calved and have never been yoked. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take their calves away and pen them up. Take the ark of the Lord and put it on the cart, and in a chest beside it put the gold objects you are sending back to him as a guilt offering. Send it on its way, but keep watching it. If it goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the Lord has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us and that it happened to us by chance."

So they did this. They took two such cows and hitched them to the cart and penned up their calves. They placed the ark of the Lord on the cart and along with it the chest containing the gold rats and the models of the tumors. Then the cows went straight up toward Beth Shemesh, keeping on the road and lowing all the way; they did not turn to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed them as far as the border of Beth Shemesh.
1 sam 6.7-12

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.' "

They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?" They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it.
mark 21.1-7

so as a reader you probably skipped over the verses. but can i recommend going back and reading them? go back and catch how the two stories resemble each other. see how the ark and Jesus both had a mission which included wild animals. see the animals overcame their natural instincts.

not sure if you've ever experienced the wrath of a bucking bronco or a cow without her calf, but it's pretty intense. my grandfather was trampled once by a cow when she felt threatened for the safety of her calf. and i've been bucked off a horse... (there's a funny story in that somewhere!) but some how God ordained for these animals to behave and do exact what they needed to do. not only did the cows abandon their calves, but they were under control even after being yoked and pulling a cart. critters feel very threatened when something is following them! so it's really not a normal behavior for these cows. and this colt knew how to behave with a rider on it's back. (again, that's not normal!) i've been part of training horses, and it's not easy. horses have a mind of their own.

time after time in the Bible, God uses object lessons to get people's attention. i can only imagine how these philistines marveled at these cows, and how the disciples must have thought Jesus was insane for attempting to sit on a wild colt. but the miracles happened. and they still happen today.

Amazing Father,
You have a way of taming the wild, from jonah's experience in the belly of the fish to calming the raging sea. what in me needs to be tamed? what object lesson do you have for me today? open my eyes so i can see great and marvelous things You create and say. let me hear Your voice, and not miss what it is that You desire for me to understand. (that was the long version, "let me hear what You are saying.") as the trees lift up their arms in praise, let me rejoice even more, for You are good and Your love endures forever.
*Derrick *Landra *Misty