First, this post is for my sister, not because she is actually a goat, but because she told me about goats in a tree and I think she’s done a pretty good job learning to be the goat in a tree. Now, onto the post, which will hopefully explain why I just called my sister a goat.
Yes, those are actual goats in a tree. No, this image hasn’t been retouched in Photoshop. Apparently goats in Morocco have the ability to climb up an down Argan trees in order to get food, which is a bit scarce in the desert country. Now, as amazing as that is, I think it raises some interesting observations.
One, we need to learn how to navigate the difficult situations in our lives. Surely, if goats can figure out how to climb trees in order to get the only food they can find, then we should be able to learn how to adapt our plans when we encounter difficulties. The expression “think outside the box” has most definitely been overused, but lots of times we feel stuck in bad situations because we can only think of the obvious solutions. Picture it: a bunch of goats hanging out under a tree starving because they can’t find anything to eat because the only place they’ve ever found food was, well, where they’d always looked for it. Finally a brave goat raises a hoof and boldly says to the goat group that they could always eat if they just climbed the tree they were dying under. Oh, the mocking bleats he must have heard from the other goats! I bet the mocking grew louder at his first failed attempts to climb the tree, too, but at some point the mocking turned to cheering when they saw him in a tree eating! The best solutions often come in the places we haven’t even looked yet. Adapt your plans. Let the stretching make you even more flexible, and see if you can find that unexpected fruit that you crave in an unexplored place.
Two, when we are willing to explore the unexplored, very often we’ll find that it yields amazing fruit. As hard as this is to believe, the goats eat from the tree and as a result their droppings contain the kernels of the seeds which are then pressed by locals for oil. The oil has many uses, but two of them are culinary and cosmetic. So, the goats think outside the box, climb a tree, eat the fruit, poop out some seeds, and then people use the oil from those seeds for cooking and for smearing on their faces to look more beautiful. Oh, and they also get richer, because a quarter-liter bottle of the oil sells for anywhere from $15-50.
The bottom line is obvious: we need to become the goat in a tree. We need to stop looking at hopeless situations and start looking at situations for hope. Like the boy who shoveled like crazy through a huge pile of horse manure because he knew that a pile that big had to lead to a horse, we need to plow our way through bad times knowing that the solution could be in the next place we look, or person we meet, or prayer we pray.
When we do that, we’ll often find others that think we’re crazy. I mean, goats in a tree?? But if we’ll persevere, we’ll soon find that, not only are we eating, but we’re also finding fuel to help others around us.
So, take a cue from some crazy Moroccan goats, and go climb a tree. You may be surprised at what you find in it.
One of my favorite passages in the Bible is found in Joshua 14:6-12. Israel is finally dividing the Promised Land after wandering in the desert for decades, and Caleb leans over to Joshua and speaks the words found in the passage.
You need to remember that years and years earlier, these were the only two spies that said they should go into the land God had promised then, and with that context, listen to the sense of destiny in Caleb’s words now:
I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’ (verses 7-9)
Caleb had this sense of destiny. As we’ll find out, he had waited 45 years to receive what he KNEW God was going to give him. Can’t you see it? Every day for 45 years, every step around that hot, dusty desert, every funeral service he attended for those other 10 spies didn’t discourage him from his destiny, they motivated him to hold on more strongly than ever before.
What does a sense of destiny feel like? A thought in the back of your mind that won’t go away, an unsettled “there’s got to be more than this” feeling even in the good times, a resoluteness that says I won’t stop until I see “it”, even though you won’t know what “it” is until “it” happens!
Caleb continued:
Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said. (verses 10-12)
Do you here it? The unwavering, steady voice of a man who was waited more than half his life to see the fulfillment of God’s destiny in his life? Not just confident in what God had finally provided, but confident in the fact that it wasn’t the final provision. “I know there are those dang Anakites in their fortified cities, but by golly, the LORD Who fulfilled one promise will help me get rid of ’em!”
85 years old, and believing God for greater things. Why? Because his lifelong sense of destiny had given him a voice of confidence.
There are plenty of other examples of this in Scripture. David felt destined to fight Goliath, and spoke to the giant with boldness. Moses (even as he stuttered) spoke confidently for God in front of Pharaoh. But today, on Resurrection Sunday, I think of the empty tomb and how the fulfillment of that promise to not allow death to hold God’s Son should give us a voice of confidence to stand before a dying world and confidently proclaim: “He’s alive! He’s alive!”
It is our destiny to share Him with the lost souls around us. Do it boldly.
