Helen the Blind Cow

Literally a blind cow named Helen went missing in my neighborhood.  She also has other special needs and somehow she got out of her pen and wandered off or someone took her.  I have looked for other lost animals including one of my goats a couple of years ago when his friend died.  Louie ditched me and went off in the thick brush to mourn.  It’s a helpless feeling when your beloved pet goes missing.  I was taking the garbage out yesterday when my neighbor told me about Helen’s disappearance.  I grabbed my phone and went out searching like many others were.  I asked God where she was and I kept thinking maybe she went back to the barn where she is kept in the winter.  She was not there. I was not as frantic about Helen’s disappearance as I had been about Louie’s but I knew there were a lot of other people very concerned about her.  We have five acres and I was making my second pass on the trails when I heard something.  It didn’t sound like acow but it could have been an animal or a bird.  A little grunt and a little rustle.  That happened three times, so I went closer on an overgrown trail and gently called her name, “Helen, is that you?”  Then I knew it was a cow sound.  At first I thought someone else looking for her was mooing to entice her to answer.  But it got louder and definitive. I called her parents and they came running with tears of joy.  Then she really started to moo.  Poor Helen was really tangled up in some thick brush.  With a lot of effort they got her out and took Helen home and, I’m sure, figured out how to try and prevent another escape.   

I do try to see everything from a God perspective.  He constantly is searching for the lost and He uses us to do it.  I could not sit in my house knowing Helen was missing, that simply was not an option.  I thank God I was sensitive enough to hear the slight noise that I did and help insure a restful night’s sleep for Helen and all the people who care deeply about her.  

Here is my question, how can a person who is born again ever look at their neighbor who isn’t saved and casually dismiss them as “it’s none of my business.”  I don’t know.  The only reason I can think of is they don’t know what they have themselves.  And I don’t mean to be informing  them they will be burning in hell, I mean showing them that life begins at the cross.  I mean real life, real joy, real lasting peace and real power too.  A lot of churches give the message of forgiveness of sins and that is good, but I believe it is an incomplete message. Yes, salvation and forgiveness of sins is a terrific start but it’s not the end. There is this idea in the church that says just hang in there till Jesus comes back and then we can leave this miserable world in the rapture.  What if that is being taught again in part but not the victory message?  What if we are supposed to show Jesus’ power living in us through the Holy Spirit while we are here and not just have it as our ticket to get out alive.  What if the Spiritual Gifts are to be show a dying world that this whole Jesus thing is really twofold about forgiveness of sins and power like it was in the book of Acts in the first century church?  You don’t receive the Holy Spirit without repentance of sins and there is no shortcut to the power. True power cannot fall into enemy hands as only true believers in Jesus Christ have access to it.  

My neighbor’s cow is a precious pet, and also because she has special needs, she found a soft place in the hearts of all who searched for her. Every single human being is just that special in God’s eyes.  He would have believers, true born-again believers, on the lookout for the lost.  If you are not moved by the lost, I have to ask you, are you sure you are really born again?  I could have sat in my comfortable house and said, “I’ll pray but you know after all she’s not my cow.” 

If you are born again, do you know you have the power of the living God inside of you?  When the master comes back, He wants us to be about doing His business. 

Luke 12:35-38  “Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.  “Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.  “Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.  “Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

I don’t think He means we should be ready with our bags packed, holding our breath and leaving others behind.  Just saying.

And if you don’t think there is power with the Holy Spirit living inside, please explain this passage to me.

Ephesians 1:18-21  I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.