Checking the fence line …

Some of the hardest work I’ve done has been building fence lines in some rugged territory.

My fence building experiences happened while living on a ranch in Arizona, and during a stint on an uncle’s hog farm in Arkansas. Both were very different experiences.

In the West, the ground is hard as a rock because its full of rock! On an Arizona ranch, you construct barbed wire fencing. That means you first dig a hole in which to place your fence post. Therein lies the challenge. To dig a hole in the rugged Arizona terrain requires post hole diggers, a shovel, a good pick, but most importantly, a long iron bar to pound and pry from the earth the rock that defies you to dig a hole. It’s back-breaking work that is a fight for every post hole.

In the South, where the soil has a greater clay consistency, the earth is a little more pliable. Being used to building fence in Arizona, I was shocked to see how it was done in Arkansas. My uncle pulled his old farm pickup truck alongside where he wanted to place a fence post. He then took a fence post that was about eight foot long and pointed at one end (somewhat resembling a giant pencil) and then stood in the bed of the truck for height and pounded the fence post into the ground with a post maul, which is an over-sized sledge hammer. Although the southern soil was more pliable, it was still a physical challenge to drive the fence post nearly halfway into the ground.

In either location, to build an entire fence, or a corral, was a real physical challenge. It was tough work. But to keep in what you needed to keep in — or keep out what you needed to keep out — you did the tough work.

The same with our lives.

There are things in our lives that are important to us that need to be protected … things that need to be kept in our lives, and things that need to be kept out. We need fences, hedges, barriers, forms of protection to maintain what needs to be held onto, and what needs to be kept out.

How hard do we work to protect our relationship with Jesus Christ? With our spouses or children or significant others in our lives? How hard do we work to keep our faith in and our doubts out? To keep a holy life in Christ protected and keep sin out? How much labor and sweat and toil do we put into those important things?

The start of a new year is a good time to do a check of the fence lines in our lives. What needs mending, and what needs building? How are you going to make sure you keep in your life what needs protecting, and keep out what is harmful to you during this new year?

Scotty