It was a beautiful Summer evening last week and we decided to take a walk in our neighbourhood. Just round the corner from the local cemetery there’s a farm that has recently undergone some renovation. After several years of dormancy the pastures and barn have been put into use again.

It’s encouraging to see the old family farms being put to use and not simply left to the forces of nature. Untold years of turmoil in clearing woodland to make homes, pasture and fertile crop land have rewarded families with a safe home environment and provided a living for generations. How quickly the abandoned homesteads deteriorate and eventually collapse into the ground, the pastures return to acres of alder bushes and pasture spruce trees and soon there is nothing to speak of the blood and sweat of toil except an epitaph on a maoss covered gravestone.

As my wife and I watched the sheep and goats straining to reach the lush grass on the other side of the new pasture fence we were reminded of how often the grass on the other side is greener and more appealing to our animal senses. Perhaps the appeal of an easier life in a professional career is what pulled young people into different circumstances, after all, the path a farmer treads is not an easy one but challenges and heartache wait around every corner. Perhaps it was the need to provide extra revenue for medical needs, or the maintenance of the farm or a host of other justifiable reasons that necessitated the upcoming generation to move away and find work in different occupations.

We called to them in our feeble attempt to mimic the “Baaa” of their universal language and as the sheep and goats ran down the sloping field out of curiosity the braver ones pressed hard against the fence and the timid ones held back in uncertainty. We were put in mind of the time when our Lord will call forth his servants and separate them into two flocks, the sheep and the goats. Would we run with enthusiasm to meet our Lord or hold back in timid and fearful uncertainty?

The grass is greener on the other side of the fence, this is as true today as it has always been and is the reason for many of the difficulties facing mankind in this troubled world. The desire for more and self betterment can drive us further and further from the flock of sheep that are satisfied to walk in the Grace of our Lord and Master. Jesus has been clear in his message that those who highly esteem the treasures of this life will fall into the category of the goats that will be rejected as unworthy at his coming.

May we be amongst those who recognize the shepherd’s voice when he comes, he is the door to the sheepfold, and he knows his sheep and they know him. Read the Bible and use it as a guide in all our choices..