Badgering Billy Goats

Have you spent much time around goats? I’m referring to real goats here, not the human goats about which the Lord speaks in Matthew 25: 32. A little-known and insignificant fact about my family is that several generations of us have had our experiences with goats. Fortunately, my experiences with goats were the most brief and distant, relegated for the most part to lying awake as they rubbed their horns on the floor joists under the parsonage in Lake Village Arkansas. Or sometimes it was tending to the billy that was often tied to a stake in the front yard of the parsonage in Fordyce, Arkansas. That was my dad’s penance for missing a meeting of the Lion’s Club. (And this generation of pastors thinks they are the first to attempt authentic identification with their congregations!)

When my grandfather was just a young boy, there were a number of goats on the family farm, including one incredibly hostile billy. My grandfather and his friends didn’t help matters much with all their teasing. That goat became so belligerent that he would lower his head and make a charge toward the boys if they merely doubled up a fist and shook it at him. Taunting that billy goat became a popular afternoon activity to which my grandfather would invite his friends. Seeking new ways to entertain his friends, my grandfather came up with a novel idea. GrandDad would stand beside the farm pond, shake his fist at the goat, wait until the charging goat was almost upon him, then drop flat on the ground. The goat would sail over his prone body and into the pond, much to the delight of my grandfather and his friends. (Sort of gives you a smidgen of appreciation for PETA doesn’t it?)

Enter my great-grandfather.

My grandfather’s dad was a stern man, not noted for his appreciation of recreation, frivolity, or (it seems) the inhumane treatment of the family goat. Sadly, his repeated admonitions went unheeded, (a trait that later wove its way into the fabric of the Hell’s Angels), and my grandfather continued to invite his friends over for the afternoon sport, practiced now in a clandestine fashion. But on one fateful day, after repeated baptisms of the goat, my grandfather looked up to see his father striding angrily across the field, ready to mete out the deserved punishment. GrandDad and his friend, fearing for their lives, ran to the pond’s edge, jumped in. Accompanied by his father’s shouting, the boys swam to the other side of the pond, and climbed into the brush. From that vantage point they watched the following scene unfold.

Standing on the edge of the pond, the infuriated, frustrated father angrily shook his fist at the wet, trembling boys hiding along the pond’s edge. Then, in a rage he turned toward the goat and shook his fist furiously. Mistake! The goat lowered its head and rushed toward the angry man. Rage met rage in a collision of horns, hair, hooves and a hat. Both the goat and the man tumbled into the water, disappeared for a few minutes, then surfaced….looking at each other, nose to nose.

Now, time and space do not permit me the opportunity to speak of the evening meal, or the subsequent punishment. But. when telling this story,  my grandfather would say, with a twinkle in his eye, “the picture was worth the price of admission!”

I am reminded of Proverbs 29: 11: A fool always looses his temper, but a wise man holds it back. It seems these days that it has become a popular practice to lose one’s temper. You see it on the field, in the ring, on the court, in the media, in churches and in congress. But James 1: 20 reminds us that the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with righteous indignation over sinful behavior; an indignation that precipitates deliberate action on behalf of the the poor, downtrodden, and defenseless.

It would be best, however, before building up a head of angry steam,  for us to make certain that we are not just wasting our energy badgering a billy goat. Our best should be given on behalf of our Lord’s highest causes.

I’m just sayin.’

Rejoice evermore!

Tom Elliff

2 Tim 1:12

---

Comments RSS You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.