Have You Hugged a Fencepost Today?

“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.”

So wrote Robert Frost in his poem “Mending Fences.” How true, especially when everyone else seems to be cavorting in wide open spaces, and we’re watching through the slats!

Spiritually speaking, it takes time to understand and appreciate the personal fences that God builds in our lives – restrictions on our actions or lifestyles or some other aspect of our lives... restrictions that apply only to us as individuals and not to the whole body of believers. They’ve been given because of, as Pastor Ben put it, our past life, our “baggage,” our innate weaknesses.

Unfortunately, we’re often slow to see those fences for what they are: evidence of God as Father - protective, proactive, preventive. He wants to keep us in the fold, safe from danger, well-fed and watered, close to Himself. They’re His way of preventing pain and tears and regret. His way of keeping us from harming ourselves – and others.

Of course, Jesus is quick to leave the ninety-nine and go for us when we wander off. But once He’s built that fence to keep us from wandering, what unnecessary grief and effort we cause, what time we waste, what ground we lose, when we trample that safety barrier and set to grazing where He has not led us.

Besides, think of it this way. If God has built a fence in your life, doesn’t it prove how much He cares about you? You’ve got His individual attention! He’s concerned about your particular weaknesses and He’s custom-built a fence or two just for you. Even after it’s constructed, His attention never wanders. He keeps reminding you of it. He keeps hauling you back behind it. He means it!

It’s a little hard on the pride sometimes, to think that we are weak where others are strong. But humility allows us to make peace with our limitations, to welcome the fence as God’s discipline, to stop kicking against it long enough to consider why it was put there. If it wasn’t there, where would we be? It’s a sobering question, and the answer… well, it’s enough to make you want to hug a fencepost.

I think, Mr. Frost, that a wise man learns to love his fences.