The Easy Way or the Hard Way a guest post by Trent Blake

Let me say thank you so much, Trent, for doing this. :)

Also I'm hoping to do this once a month so if any of you would like to do a guest post shoot me an email at brookiefaulkner809@gmail.com

A man was tending his sheep in the wilderness. When they came to a savanna, he gave them time to rest on the soft grass, eat the growing wheat, and drink from the quiet stream. It was the picture of perfectness.

One of the sheep, named “Joe” looks up and sees a large cliff, overlooking a deep valley. Two other sheep, “Dave” and “Bob” see it too. As the three sheep hobble over to investigate, the shepherd sees them going toward danger. He runs over and stands in front of the three sheep. They all stare at him and think. Then, Joe turns around, as Dave and Bob continue around the shepherd, towards the cliff.

The shepherd, then, moves in front of the sheep again. Dave and Bob just look at each other, and go around the shepherd again. Finally, as they’re at the edge of the cliff, the shepherd takes his staff and whacks both of them in the head, so they go back. After considering it, Dave decides he needs to lose a few more pounds before he can fly. So, the two sheep hobble back to the savanna.

We are the sheep and God is our shepherd.

Sometimes, when I comment on this one site, I will get a strange feeling to re-evaluate my words, and ask myself “what would Jesus do in my place?” Sometimes, I ignored it, and posted the comment anyway.  This is like the sheep going around the shepherd and continuing toward the cliff. At first, there was no real change. Then, it happened again when I was in an online debate. Like before, God told me to reevaluate my words, but I ignored the feeling and had the comment posted. This time, however, the consequences were not so easy to resolve. The shepherd hit me with his staff before I could learn to not be prideful and rash to speak.

In that comment, I had severely misrepresented Christ and I hurt the reputation of not only myself, but of everyone else involved as well. Thankfully, that was enough to send me back to the savanna. But it was definitely not the easy way! It stunk!

So, I’m asking each of you right now, when God tries to teach you something the easy way, please listen and don’t make the same mistake I did, and force him to teach you the hard way. Have an awesome day, y’all!

You can find Trent's blog at foreversoldiersofgod.blogspot.com

Brooke