A couple of months or so ago these were small and adorable, but they are growing up fast. Twice when walking to work in the past fortnight when I passed the field where this picture was taken I found a lamb stuck in the wire fence beside the road and bleating loudly. The fence consists of a square mesh of about 5 inches or 25 centimetres in size. By now their horns are beginning to grow. The problem being that they could force their faces through the hole but when they tried to pull their heads back their small horns caught on the wire. On both occasions I managed to release them. Though they struggled against me and I got the impression that they were not exactly thanking me for my efforts. It got me thinking, does God allow new believers to get away with things which if we try and repeat it later we find that we end up like those lambs. Well and truly snagged. God expects believers to live within certain boundaries. But the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. The young lambs seem to have learnt their lesson as I have noticed that more recently they are staying away from the fence. But all too often we do not learn from our mistakes and we think sheep are stupid! Paul lamented that those he was responsible for bringing to Christ were behaving like babies, still craving milk when they should be moving on to solids. I think that part of the problem today is that new believers hear about freedom on Christ, that traditional denominations are man-made structures, etc., that they descry all forms of a disciplined Christian lifestyle that previous generations would have thought as essential for spiritual growth. If we do not try and set aside a regular ‘quiet time’ then why should we expect to hear from God. Too many Christians seem to think that because they “can do all things through  Christ,” we can do the spiritual equivalent of turning up at the Olympic games without any training and expect to beat Usain Bolt in the final of the 100 metres. Then wonder why we fall flat on our faces when we leave the starting blocks instead of streaking to victory. When Paul used the analogy of the Roman soldier in Ephesians 6 where he talked of putting on the whole armour of God he also alluded to the training that Roman soldiers underwent to instil the discipline that Roman soldiers needed to fight and win.

David Rose. 2016.