Guest Blogger: Austin Evans!

So I got a message via facebook last night from one of my most treasured & glorious friends, Mr. Austin "ACE" Evans, and he asked if I could share this post of his somehow..... and what better way to do it, then as a guest-blogger entry! Austin is currently in Nashville, living the dream and working towards bigger & better things as a song-writer and all-around creative mastermind. Basically he rules. Anyways, here are his thoughts via blog post:

Ok so the pastor at Brentwood Baptist tonight was reading this Bible passage that told this story: There was a rich farmer and a poor farmer. The rich farmer had a ton of sheep. Rams, ewes, you name it, this farmer was loaded. (I am obviously paraphrasing the Bible here, call it the ACE translation). The poor farmer however, could only afford one little baby sheep. And he loved that sheep. It ate from his table, it drank from his cup, it slept with him...basically it was a pet. The Bible says he "loved it like a daughter." So one day a visitor comes to the farm and its customary to feed them. Well back in the day you didn't go to the grocery store and buy a Tombstone Pizza, you slaughtered one of your animals and prepared a feast. Well the rich farmer looks out on his flock and decides he doesn't want to sacrifice any of his sheep, so he straight up takes the poor farmer's sheep and uses that. Well King David hears about this and it says "anger burned in his heart" and he said "As sure as the LORD lives, this man should be sentenced to death for his lack of compassion." Now, David didn't kill him, but its pretty obvious that this was a serious crime.

This is where I admittedly tuned out the pastor for a minute to kind of take my own line of thinking. God prodded me with this thought and I really wanted to share it: So the sheep itself didn't have any special value. It wasn't a rare sheep, or a big sheep it was just a plain ole sheep. The reason the rich farmer's crime was so heinous was because the poor farmer LOVED the sheep. The sheep was loved by someone, which made it very special. How much more does God love us than that farmer loved his sheep? And beyond that, this guy was just a farmer... we're talking about an all-knowing, all-present Creator of the Universe that loves us! I mean, if nothing else we have EXTREME value if for no other reason than that there is an ever present Lord who loves us and desires a relationship with us. So next time you're feeling down, or that you don't have value, or that God can't use you, or that you've wasting your time, or that you just broke up with someone and they were a huge part of who you were, or you just got into a relationship and they are becoming a huge part of who you are, or your parents weren't the best and you're wondering how you're ever going to be capable of having a family, or maybe you did something really stupid and you're wondering if you're worth saving...GOD LOVES YOU AND YOU HAVE MORE VALUE THAN YOU CAN FATHOM.