Many years ago, my pastor asked me and another intern working in the church to help him with a problem he had on his ranch in Graham, TX. You see, on his ranch lived a bull named "Limo". Limo had injured himself on a barbed wire fence and needed to be looked at by the vet. What our pastor wanted us to do is simply put Limo into the chute with the harness to hold down the bull while the vet worked on him. The only problem was that I had no idea how we were going to get him in the harness. I guess because my pastor knew that I grew up in Arkansas, naturally I knew what to do with livestock. Boy was he wrong.
So I strapped on my only pair of overalls (Old Navy 39.95), which by the way were in style in the 90's, and my Doc Martin boots (30 dollars from mexico) and off we went to punch some cattle. Upon arriving, I noticed that Limo had already been put in a little pen right by the chute. This was going to be easy. A couple of hours later, the vet shows up and we have not made Limo move one muscle. The vet was furious. He took one look at us and knew that we were not going to get the job done.
He gives a pitch fork (I didn't know they even used stuff like that anymore) to my buddy and tells him to poke the bull as hard as he can in the rear when he tells him to. Then he tells me to go to the harness and pull the lever when the bull runs through the chute. Then he does something totally insane. The vet picks up a two by four and goes up to the bull and hits him square between the eyes. Limo gets mad (no duh) and comes toward the chute where the vet was. When the bull stops, the vet tells my buddy to jab Limo with the pitch fork. This makes the bull even madder and makes him charge right for the harness where I was waiting to clamp him down. The only problem was that this lever was really rusty and when Limo comes through, I fail to clamp him down.
Now this 1 million pound bull is free to go wherever he wants. No pens, no fences, not even a cattle guard is stopping him from going to downtown Graham and living it up. But this bull does something that I will never forget. Instead of taking off for the hills, Limo makes a turn and goes right back through the gate and into the pen he was originally held in. He was free but chose to be penned up just like he was before.
Many times we are like Limo. We have been beaten. We have been poked and prodded. We have even felt the bonds of imprisonment. Then Jesus sets us free. But it seems that we go right back into the pen and allow ourselves to be bound up again. Galatians 5:1 says "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage".
What makes us go back? Comfort, fear of the new unknown, and sin are a few of the reasons that bondage seems to fit better than freedom, but going back leads to more pain and holds us back from living the life God intended for us to live. So don't settle. Live free. And if you ever run into a bull named Limo, don't give him my address.
