The Cattle On A Thousand Hills

Psalm 50, verse 10, records the words of God in this Psalm of Asaph: " . . . . for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills." Driving through several hundred miles of Southern Missouri hills, I had a lot of time to ponder these words, for Southern Missouri hills are filled with trees and pasture lands.

At first, though incredibly beautiful and breath-taking, the hills disoriented me for the lack of 'life' as I know it. I kept looking for fields of corn or fields of beans. I craned my neck searching for alfalfa fields or evidence of wheat stubble, but regardless of the direction I turned, none was to be found. Southern Missouri is not like the Southwestern portion of Illinois where we reside. There are thousands of hills and ten thousands of cattle and horses. There are goats and chickens of every imaginable breed. There are dusty towns with gravelled roads and gossamer lakes teaming with fishes of all kinds . . . but it is not like the land from whence I hailed, nor is it the land I imagined it to be. So what is it?

It is God's land and these are God's people. Graced with an abundant and verdant beauty the likes of which the plains of Illinois could never comprehend, Southern Missouri is surrounded by the lush vistas of rolling forests and spring-fed streams, the kind of which are the plumb-line photographers seek for magazine and calendar photos.

It is God's land and these are God's people. They are like me in that they breathe the air that I breathe and walk the earth that I walk, yet their experience of life is so remarkably different that, in the traversing of only a couple of hundred miles, the earth they walk is hardened stone under foot and, what is shadow of crop lines in this area becomes shadow of tree lines and creek banks in theirs.

It is God's land and these are God's people . . . . and, together, we make compose a subliminal symphony of extraordinary power proclaiming the wonder and majesty of God's Name. The cattle on a thousand hills, like the corn over a thousand acres, is God's - and we are the sheep of God's pasture, provided for out of the generosity of God's own holdings.

As the miles wore on and the landscape captured my heart I found myself no longer seeking the familiar in unfamiliar places, but eagerly anticipating the opportunity to embrace the joy, God's Joy, which presents itself in so many different ways and so many different expressions. I pray the journey makes me a better observer, aware of the wonder - and less intent on the mundane. I pray to see the cattle on a thousand hills . . . and there rejoice in God my Savior.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don