Perspectives on Cows

My family and I served with Lutheran Bible Translators in a rural area of Botswana in southern Africa. In those communities, cows play a central role. There are words which describe each animal’s color and pattern.

I read a recent survey finding in the US. According to this report, 33% of those surveyed age 11-24 had never seen a physical cow.

No wonder there is strife in the world. The reader can picture the lack of a common perspective between such communities, especially if the topic is cows.

But there is commonality— “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away (Psalm 90:10).”

No matter how I see or describe my world, ‘toil and trouble’ does not go away. There is one certainty—time ticks on and each life on earth ends. A highly depressing thought on its own.

But we are not left without hope. God sent His Son Jesus so that “…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).” We have all fallen short of what God would desire us to be but through faith given we receive life everlasting through Jesus’ death on the cross. We are reconciled. That changes everything!

Life is more than ‘toil and trouble’ until ‘seventy or eighty years’. It’s more than one’s perspective on cows. My life is lived because of what Jesus has done for me. That is God’s message in Scripture. We are invited into His story of salvation. That is a story worth telling no matter in which community, no matter what language.