Out Our Way: Don't mess with my beloved! - Zechariah 2:7-9

Out our way, it is not unusual to find folks making lifelong friendships, and we see it in critters as well. When I would arrive at the paddock, Doc would usually come up to the gate, ears alert and sometimes whinney a greeting. Yes, we had a bond - but that was nothing compared to the attachment he had to his paddock mate, Babe.

Now Babe was a small, absolutely beautiful sorrel paint mare that Doc adored. As she was deathly afraid of cows, she stayed behind when Doc and I joined Charlie on the Tiger Ridge, but when the Ex and I just rode for pleasure, my beloved rode Doc's beloved and we let them take the lead. Doc and I just followed them without question. I didn't need reins, spurs nor quirt to direct Doc, for wherever Babe went and at whatever gait she chose, Doc followed.  

Now, as it happened, a woman came to the stable and boarded her horse, "Cowboy," in the paddock next to Doc and Babe's. I was hauling hay to feed the gang one morning and noticed "Cowboy" coming up to our paddock's fence, watching Babe and eventually stretching his neck over the partition in her direction. Then I heard a loud snort and an angry neighing - almost braying! - and the sound of a galloping horse. I looked up and saw Doc with teeth bared, ears flat, and I could almost swear his mane was bristling, charging the fence. The absolute fury I saw in Doc was incredible. I am glad that the target of Doc's wrath was "Cowboy" and not me, and that "Cowboy" got the message and backed off. "Don't mess with my beloved!"

Now, the prophet Zechariah declared God had said the same thing over the centuries to various empires and nations which decided to attack and even destroy Israel. They scoffed and ignored the waning as "superstitious nonsense." Egypt - Assyria - Babylon ( Iraq) - Persia (Iran) - Rome - the Nazis - ISIS and Hamas - and so forth and so on. 

Now, to be fair, Israel is not blameless in all this and much of the disasters she suffered over the centuries are the consequence of her own rebellion against God. Yet, even so, she remains "the apple of God's eye." And so do you.

In Christ, I learn my DNA and ancestry are no longer the basis for my being one of God's chosen. A new Israel has arisen that embraces all tribes and peoples. I recalled the parable of the Good Samaritan today in the Care Center services I now hold weekly - and remembered the Priest and the Scribe, representing the dominant Sadducee and Pharisee sects of Judaism, failed a fellow Jew on the roadway. It was the Samaritan whose faith and love of neighbor, not his DNA, showed him to be one of God's Chosen. 

Like Israel of old, we are a target for hate and discrimination. "No one can serve two masters" is as true today as it was when Christ said it. For those who serve God cannot serve self or the pop culture of the day as well. We see attacks, both verbal and physical, against churches and Christianity in general as the elites who want to replace God with self-dominating politics, the media, and academia. Thus it is and always has been. From Pharaoh to Caesar to Stalin and on into the present, those who reject and persecute the faithful simply follow the same pattern they always have and for a time seem to succeed as they lead the gullible away, declaring "God is dead and we are now the new gods of humanity!" Reread Psalm 2. Been there - done that! And "God laughs!" And then God acts. Read your history. Check the news on the Middle East and see what nation continues to stand while attacked from all sides time and again.    

I do not seek to create an "image" of God - but that memory of an irate Doc charging "Cowboy" for daring to cross the line seems a pretty fair symbol of what the prophet was talking about. If you seek to follow Christ and accept His correction when you stray, you are also the "apple of God's eye" - and those who attack you for your faith will eventually either change their ways or follow the path of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and all the others that dared to "cross the line" and challenge God.

Be blessed and be a blessing.

Brother John 

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The Rev. John Bruington is the retired pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Havre. He now lives in Colorado, but continues to write "Out Our Way."