Stock Show Time

I have many memories of this time of year - stock show time.  For most of my growing up years, ages nine through eighteen, I was a member of the Hope 4-H Club.  Most of those years I was raising a steer to show in the annual stock show.  Well, there was that one year that I had a failed attempt to raise a hog but we won't go into that.

Not all my memories are pleasant, I still blame one particularly unruly steer for some of the back problems I experience today.  He knocked me to the ground with such a hard blow I really think it did some damage.  I have a suspicion that he felt I was responsible for him going from a bull to a steer.  In the end, I really had no regrets about selling him in the stock show auction to a man who ran a grocery with a fine meat market in it.

Most of the other animals and I got along well.  Through much of the school year, I would spend time every day feeding, walking, grooming or somehow tending to my show steer.  I learned after my first stock show that all my time and all my preparations were leading up to one moment before a judge - months would lead up to a few minutes.  Before him, every thing would be evaluated, graded, rated and judged.  What he said determined how much or how little, I would make in the auction.  One year, I won Grand Champion.  It was the biggest accomplishment of my life to that point.

God has now called me to a position where it is my job to tell people that one day they will stand before a judge.  There may have been some hardships, some knock downs, some injuries and much hard work before that day but we will come to it nonetheless. But unlike a stock show, God will not be looking for one to award as Grand Champion nor will He be determining how much we are worth in an auction, He will be looking for that which is His own. 

Too many people face that day before God like they would face a stock show judge.  They think, 'If I have worked hard enough, suffered enough, gotten my life in good enough condition maybe the judge will look favorably upon me and give me some sort of award.'  The Bible says it will not be like that at all.  It will not be about the condition of my work.  It will be about the condition of my relationship with the judge.  That moment before God is either your greatest anticipation or your greatest anxiety.  Which is it for you?  Let's talk about it Sunday.

For the journey...

Tim

You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.  Romans 14:10