Musk Ox photo by Frida Lanniers on Unsplash.
‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you.’ Job 12:7.
So will the Musk Ox. They’ve been in existence since the last Ice Age!
Their message has always been the same, ‘let me show you how to defend yourself.’
Gather everyone in a circle facing outward like we do with your vulnerable ones in the middle. This defensive move has been dubbed, the ‘Circle the Wagons defense’ .
We know from history that pioneers traveling the Oregon or California Trails formed a circle like the Musk Ox with their covered wagons at night to create a makeshift corral, which kept valuable livestock from wandering off and provided a quick defensive boundary in case of external threats. AI Overview. They listened to the Musk Ox and protected their own!
The ‘wise’ Musk Ox survives in the Arctic where the winter temperatures can reach 58 degrees below zero. It wears a very warm coat!!! Their coat has two layers of hair. The outer layer is called their ‘guard’ hair which protects the inner layer from snow and rain. The inner layer is called ‘qiviut’ hair, which is the warmest wool in the world, eight times warmer than sheep’s wool. They are big dudes, weighing up to 900 pounds! And they are herbivores, eating grass, moss, Arctic willows and lichens!
Musk Ox are instinctively herding animals. They stick together. We can learn from them, not just to ‘circle our wagons’, but to stick together!
It has been my experience, that we are not naturally ‘herding animals’. However, it is God’s will for us to be together and need each other like the Musk Ox, so He created the body of Christ. As I wrote in my last post, ‘The Body’, as the Apostle Paul admonishes us, needs to be unified as our own bodies are unified. To recognize the need for each other. As Jesus prayed in John 17,
‘I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. (It is critically important to God because) Then the world will know that you (God) sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.’ John 17:20-23.
Perhaps that is why the Apostle Paul again admonishes us to, ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’ Ephesians 4:3.
The book of Hebrews also admonishes us to ‘not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ Hebrews 10:25.
Looks like, according to the scriptures that we need to be ‘herding animals’ after all!!
JOIN THE HERD!
