The stockman

Every fortnight people from a farming background, or who have a heart for the countryside, offer a personal reflection on faith and rural life. They hope that you will be encouraged by it.

What kind of stock will you be leaning over the gate looking at, in the months to come?

Will you see a batch of dairy heifers, bagging up nicely, coming to the calving? Or will you hear the shrill “maas” of little lambs, as they skip and dance and look for their mums.

Perhaps it will be shapely suckler cows, with their well-made calves at foot, munching on some spring grass? For a stockman, or stockwoman, everything revolves around the livestock. I’m very much a part-time stockman, but I’ve always loved good stock.

Lots of qualities are needed to make a good stockman: wise feeding, but not over-feeding, good nutrition, a proper programme of fluke and worm control; and perhaps a clip, or trim for the animal, just to provide that final finishing touch.

All these skills are important, but, in my view, they are not the most important. The most important thing of all is selecting the right stock in the first place. You can feed, dose, give minerals, clip and trim all you like, but an average animal will always be just an average animal. I was talking to a friend recently (on the phone) and he was saying that having ‘an eye’ to buy the right stock is absolutely vital. The old adage is so true, ‘The day you buy, is the day you sell.’

We recently bought a batch of breeding beef heifers for our farm. My dad and I put a lot of time and thought into picking them. Sizing up, studying and talking over the merits of each animal.

Now I am very glad that when it comes to selecting sheep for His flock, Jesus doesn’t choose His followers the way I pick my heifers - looking for almost perfect ones! If He did, Jesus’ field would be empty. For as the godly, Jesus-centred prophet, Isaiah, reminds us, ‘We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way...’ (Isaiah 53:6). We all stray away from Jesus and His right way, because we want to go ‘our own way’: this is the very essence of sin.

But because Jesus is the ultimate Shepherd and Stockman, Isaiah is able to continue, ‘…the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (Isaiah 53:6). Jesus is God’s perfect provision: the heavy load of His followers’ sin and guilt was laid upon Jesus, and He died for our forgiveness. If you have never understood the depth and seriousness of your sin, and the even deeper love of God the Father and God the Son for you - may God the Spirit enable you to see these realities now. Please ask Jesus to forgive you and bring you into His flock.

And if you are already part of His flock, may you grow into a strong, thriving Christian, as Jesus feeds you through His word, the Bible, and prayer. May you also find deep comfort in Jesus’ care for you, day-by-day, as a treasured member of His flock.

When challenges and difficulties come to you, may Jesus’ joyful hope lift your heart. And when your time on earth is over, you will experience Jesus leading you through the darkest of valleys (Psalm 23:4), and all the way into His fold in heaven (John 14:2-6), where you will adore Him, and He will treasure you.

Rev. Kenny Hanna is minister of Second Dromara Presbyterian Church and grew up on his family’s farm in the foothills of the Mountains of Mourne.

If you would like to talk to someone about this article, please email Rev. Kenny Hanna at [email protected] or call him on 028 9753 1234.

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