If you work with cattle, one day, you will get the call: “I was riding by your place, and one of your cows is out.”  I have done my fair share of trying to get cows back in that got out.   

One memorable night, my brother Steve and I pulled up to the house and saw a pair of eyes shining back at us.  In the light of the headlights, we could just make out a black cow, far from where she was supposed to be.  We were in our stepfather’s ’73 Buick Electra.  It hung low to the ground but was packed with power – a 455 V-8 with a four-barrel carburetor.  Steve was driving; he floored it, trying to chase a black cow on a moonless night through an orange grove, back to the pasture.  We roared up the middles and would catch a glimpse of the cow running.  Steve would sling that Buick around, and we could feel the frame hitting the dirt.  I was leaning out the window, getting hit by orange limbs, trying to get a better view.  We never did find her.  In the morning, we went looking again, and she was back in the pasture, apparently having decided it was safer behind the fence than being chased by a Buick through an orange grove. 

One thing I love about the pasture I lease is it has strong fences: hog wire all across the outside with a “hot” electric wire attached.  It would be hard for a cow to get out.  So I was surprised when Tommy, my landlord, called me to tell me I had a cow out.  Surely, he was mistaken.  How could a cow get out of my place? 

Still, when the call comes, you go.  I dropped everything and rushed out to the pasture.  Sure enough, standing on the wrong side of the fence was one of my heifers.  She was looking forlorn through the fence at her herd-mates.  They were sticking with her, and no one could figure out why the fence was in the way.  I looked a little closer, and it was my same dumb heifer who will not go through gates when I move the herd.   

I pulled my truck over and climbed up the embankment, and tried to get her to go along the fence.  She started in the right direction, and I thought I could keep her moving with my truck.  As soon as I went back to get in my truck, she turned back. 

I drove down and opened the gate she would need to go through, then came back up to the road.  I got out and began to chase her again down the fence line.  This time, she jumped the road and went into the woods on the other side.   

A kind man (I later found his name was Walt) had stopped, gotten out of his truck, and said, “I’ll go around and try to push toward the road.”  I went into the woods, got behind her, and gently steered her toward the road.  Another car stopped, and a young woman (I later learned her name was Savannah) instinctively went to stop this heifer from going further down the road. 

With Walt and I behind her, we got her out on the road, and she started down the fence line in the right direction.  Making the next turn was critical; if she went on, there was no fence to help.  Savannah standing there made a difference.  The heifer turned like magic.  She went into the woods on the dirt road but soon came out and followed the fence line all the way to the gate.  I moved as fast as I could to slam the gate behind her, thankful she was safe in the fold again. 

As we walked back to our vehicles, I thanked my new friends Walt and Savannah.  I could not have gotten her back into the pasture without them.  

How did she get out?  The day before, I was in a hurry, and I left a gate open as I was hauling hay.  No cow had ever gotten out before; why would one get out now?  Leave it to my one dumb heifer to lag behind, get out, and have an adventure.   

Why would a heifer leave the place where is she is safe, has plenty of grass, and gets fed?  There is an old hymn that explains: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; prone to leave the one I love…”  Why do we run away from our Heavenly Father who loves us, provides for us, who works good in our lives?  We still believe the old lies of Satan, who tells us life out on the road is more exciting and fun, who whispers to us that God is unfair.   Yet Jesus comes for us.  Whenever one of his cows are out, he comes to find us to guide us back home.  If you are far from your Heavenly Father’s pasture, Jesus is inviting you to come home.