Don’t Be Like the Mule By John Piper
by John Piper
Be not like a horse or a mule, without
understanding, which must be
curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay
near you. (Psalm 32:9)
Picture God’s people as a farmyard of all sorts of
animals. God cares
for his animals, he shows them where they need to
go, and supplies a barn
for their protection.
But there is one beast on this animal farm that
gives God an awful
time, namely, the mule. He’s stupid and he’s
stubborn and you can’t
tell which
comes first — stubbornness or stupidity.
Now the way God likes to get his animals into the
barn for their food
and shelter is by teaching them all a personal
name and then calling them
by name. “I will instruct you and teach you in the
way you should go”
(Psalm 32:8).
But the mule will not respond to that sort of
direction. He is without
understanding. So God gets in his pick-up truck
and goes out in the field,
puts the bit and bridle in the mule’s mouth,
hitches it to the truck,
and drags him stiff-legged and snorting all the
way into the barn.
That is not the way God wants his animals to come
to him for blessing.
One of these days it is going to be too late for
that mule. He’s going to
get clobbered with hail and struck by lightening
and when he comes
running the barn door is going to be shut.
Therefore, don’t be like the mule, but instead let
everyone who is godly
come to God in prayer at a time when he may be
found (Psalm 32:6).
The way not to be a mule is to humble ourselves,
to come to God in
prayer, to confess our sins, and to accept, as
needy little farmyard
chicks, the direction of God into the barn of his
protection.
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