Yesterday, I was stopped at a traffic light. I began to hear the bleating of a lamb. I thought it was something on my radio. Then I heard it again. I realized a lamb was inside a custom made transport crate depicted in the photograph. The crate was securely held in the bed of a pickup truck. I could tell the person driving the truck cared about the lamb the way they had prepared to transport the animal. The bleating of the lamb was happening because the lamb had no idea what was taking place and did not know this was being done to make sure the lamb would arrive safely at its new destination. The unfamiliarity caused it to bleat out its concern.

The lamb looked and sounded like someone God is moving to a new place through unfamiliar experiences. There are times when God will put us in the crate of an unusual expression of His love to keep us safe in the journey. When the journey begins, these crates make no sense. We want to go back to the familiar pasture we have known where things made sense, and life was predictable. The lamb I saw would not survive the traffic I was driving through. Traveling alone and unprotected would have caused the lamb to experience a level of danger not present in the peaceful pasture of its past. 

There are some situations in life where we can feel trapped and taken to places we did not request. Before we label any transport as something negative, we need to ask the Lord if this is something He is doing for our own welfare. Once we know it’s the Lord, we will begin to experience a deep appreciation for the love and care of God, and our bleating will stop. At that moment, when surrounded by so many unfamiliar things, we will understand He is trying to get us through the dangerous traffic of life to arrive safely at a new pasture. We can always trust God in the journey, no matter how strange and unfamiliar it might appear.