Lifetime Daily DevotionsSample

A Stubborn Little Lamb

As for God, His way is blameless.
Psalm 18:30

For the Lord your God is a compassionate God.
Deuteronomy 4:31

Whom He foreknew, He also predestined
to become conformed to the image of His Son.
Romans 8:29

I am confident of this very thing, that
He who began a good work in you will
perfect it.
Philippians 1:6

"Cmon, Buttons, you can do it! Jump! Hey, you're supposed to go over the poles,not try to knock them down with your head! Jump! Please jump!"

Sherrie watched as the lamb tried every way to get around or under the hurdle rather than to jump over it. He was dirty and completely exhausted, and she was dirty and completely exhausted.

It was only three months until the first competition, and this stubborn Buttons adamantly refused to do what she knew must be done in order to win. She picked him up and put him over the barricade. She guided him through her legs and arms, making a tunnel that would be his only way to go. No success. She was dealing with an obstinate, stupid, rebellious little sheep.

This wasn't the first time Sherrie had entered a lamb in the livestock show, but it was the first time she had experienced such difficulty in training an animal that was bent on bucking someone so much bigger and smarter than he was. And she wasn't doing anything that would hurt him . . . only what it would take to make him into a prizewinning sheep.

Sherrie had tried everything to get him to go through this simple routine that was needed to strengthen his hindquarters. It was an important point in the judging, so she was obviously going to have to take more drastic measures. She had put his food on the other side of the hurdle and the silly little lamb still balked. In fact, he nearly wore himself out trying to get under the hurdle.

What to do? "Well, Ill just put in more barriers to where he can't possibly get under the barricade or go around it. He will have to go over it! Why he's so determined to go against what I have planned for him, and where he got it into his little brain that I'm trying to hurt him or that I'm doing something that will ruin his life, is beyond me."

All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way.
Isaiah 53:6

Hmmmmm. I think I understand a little better now why were sometimes compared to sheep in Your Word.

My head is throbbing from trying to knock my problems out of the way. I'm weary. Exhausted. Bewildered. And why am I so determined that what You allow to come into my life is meant to hurt me or to wreck my plans, when Your only purpose is to make me into a prizewinning sheep?

Im sorry, Lord. Thank You for working so hard with me. And I'm very thankful to know that You aren't going to give up on me.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
John 10:27

Come to think of it, You're the only One who knows the date of the competition. Maybe You're working overtime on some of us?