Cow-bells

We’ve been visiting family in the north of Spain. One of our great delights is to walk in the wonderful Peña Sagra mountains. One day we were quite high up. There was complete silence – not a car, not a plane: nothing. Except, that is, the cow-bells. Every animal there has a bell: cows, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys. And, as we walked, there was the continuous music of the bells. Very necessary. Without them, the farmer would never know where his animals were. We couldn’t see many of them. Some were in small gullies; some behind trees or bushes, others behind rocks. But we could hear them. Sometimes it was just one; at other times, many, all chiming together. The cow-bell means that the farmer knows just where his animal is.

And I was thinking that our human spirit – the spirit God put in us at conception – is just like that. It means that God knows just where I am, day and night. And it’s not only where I am geographically. He knows where I am spiritually, and in my thinking and feeling. I may be ‘all at sea’ in my emotions; I may feel ‘disoriented’ in my mind. I may feel spiritually very distant from God. But He hears my ‘cow-bell’ because His ear is always attentive to the call of my spirit.

Single bells are lovely; but lots of them are even better. How God loves the sound of Christians in fellowship and when we join together to sing praises that come from deep within our spirit.

This is how Psalm 121 ends: ‘The LORD will keep you from all harm – he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and for evermore’. What a promise!

Prayer: Father, thank You that I’m never out of Your earshot; that, even when I feel lonely or a bit lost, You know exactly where I am, and You’re so quick to find me and help me. Lord, today I reaffirm my trust in Your faithfulness to watch over me and keep me from harm. Amen.