There is no clearer picture of letting go of our own plans and giving into God’s, than on a ranch.
I tend to be a perfectionist. I will spend hours researching the best way to do, build, or handle situations on our ranch so I can be as prepared as possible when stuff happens. And yet, despite all those hours of trying to plan things to work perfectly, something always goes wrong.
Take our recent goat breeding adventure for example. I did all the math, figured out when my does were in heat, rented a buck, and planned on having baby goats by the end of May.
And then everything went wrong.
I’ll spare you most of the details because they aren’t relevant to my point, plus it’s a really, really long story. But to sum up the story, my girls didn’t get pregnant when I planned. It took me three days to try and draw blood from my girls to get pregnancy tests done and even though I had three different people come and try to hold my girl Honey down, I was not able to draw her blood. She’s a fighter that one, but I honestly can’t blame her. I don’t like getting my blood drawn either.
I ended up having to use a different buck and while I was waiting for this other buck to arrive, I decided that if Honey wasn’t pregnant, I wasn’t going to try breeding her again for reasons I won’t explain here. But the day the buck arrived, Honey was in heat and there was no keeping those two apart. Seriously, the dude jumped fences to be with her. I’ve recently concluded that she is for sure pregnant, but I’m still uncertain about our other doe, Reba. Which means I’ll have babies in the middle of July and possible in August.
But through this process I’ve learned a few things.
1. I don’t have to do all the things every major dairy goat owner does. Like drawing blood for pregnancy testing. I can do it the farmer’s way and wait and see.
2. Through the whole adventure I had “a feeling” about certain aspects but went against that feeling because I was taking the advice of people who are more experience than myself. In the end, I realized this was the Holy Spirit trying to direct me. If I’d listened, I might not have ended up so frustrated and upset.
3. I got a clearer idea of how I want to run my herd in the future.
4. I definitly want to get my own buck so I do have a little more control over timing.
I probably won’t stop researching and trying to be as prepared as possible, but as I make these plans and preparations, I need to remember that all I’m doing is preparing for all possible outcomes. I need to stop expecting things to go according to the plans I’ve laid out and trust that as I seek God in my life, and for what to do with the land he’s entrusted to us, that his plans will be played out here.