Running in Circles

Running in Circles

The wool shed was over one hundred years old. It stood weathered and old in the grassy paddock beside our house. Originally it had been two separate slab houses that had been joined together, with the flooring added, to become the wool shed. The biting cold of the winter winds had been kept out by newspaper, which had been pasted in layers on the inside walls and was now faded, yellowed and peeling. The  dirt floor had been replaced by the common wooden slats of the shearing shed and had seen many a shearers’ boots and the frantic hooves of sheep being mustered. The old wool table, where the full fleece was thrown for skirting and classing, stood lonely and dusty. Antique wooden wool presses lay discarded and forgotten. Timber pens for sheep were now empty, and the sound of bleating sheep waiting to be shorn was a forgotten memory. The metal roof was rusting and the woodshed stood solitary with the echoes of many shearing seasons of bygone days.

The sheep, on the property we lived on, were either 'cross breds' or merinos. They were bought and sold seasonly and were flocks of young wethers, being shorn and then sent off to market for their meat before another mob was bought cheaply from out west, fattened quickly, shorn and sold as well. Rather than modernising the old wool shed, the sheep were placed on cattle trucks and taken to a neighbouring property to be shorn. They were regularly rotated around various dry grass paddocks, being successfully herded by the enthusiastic Aussie kelpie dog and pushed along by the sheep manager on a four wheeler. 

One day the mob had been split up and a group of about fifty were brought into the small paddock that housed the now empty wool shed. The grasses were growing tall and presented a fire and  snake hazard. The sheep were needed to reduce the paddock to small tufts of chewed grasses. They grazed peacefully beside each other, stopping occasionally to look around and chew their cud. Gentle bleating floated on the soft breeze of a warm spring day. Suddenly a sheep was startled, and by what, I have never found out. With a sharp cry one sheep leaped into the air, coming down on all four hooves to only start running madly. He dashed for the shadowy side of the wool shed. Alarmed, the other sheep raised their heads and within moments they had ceased from chewing and had let out a variety of frightened bleats and hurtled themselves in the direction of the startled sheep. Around the side of the wool shed, they dashed, following the first sheep. They were spooked and every single sheep ran. Not one sheep remained. Stampeding and crying they hotly pursued each other until all fifty sheep had round the woodshed corner and disappeared out of sight. The first sheep who had sounded the alarm came back into view and slowed down, catching his breath and looking around him. All seemed to be safe and he was ready to settle once more to the huge task of daily eating, when in his peripheral vision he caught sight of the last sheep rounding the corner. Shocked, the first sheep took off at a rapid run towards the final sheep. Around the corner of the old wool shed he dashed once more, no longer the leader, he was now a follower. Minute after minute passed as the sheep in panic circled the wool shed, each following the other. Round and round they went with no clear leader and with no clear reason for running. Eventually they slowed down, worn and harried, coming to a final stop in their distressed state. It took some time for them to settle peacefully once more to their contended grazing. 

Sometimes I feel like those sheep. I am busy dashing it what feels like circles. I am in rapid pursuit of all that needs to be done in a feeling of anxiety and stress. Others around me sense the tension and are impacted. What am I following after? Why is there stress? Does it even make sense? Why am I going round and round in circles? God calls to me to rest in Him, to graze peacefully beside the still waters of His presence. He asks me to bring my burdens, all I have to do, my plans and my busyness to Him in full surrender, to be worked out each day in His way and with His peaceful Spirit calmly abiding within. Today I choose to abide in Him and allow His Spirit to dwell in me. “Lord take my plans, my burdens and my busyness and work your way and your will with all that lies before me today.” Amen

Ps 23:2,3 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake.

Matt 11:28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”