be the cow

in 1 samuel 4, the israelities are fighting against the philistines and they are not winning. so they decide to pull the ark out of the tabernacle and bring it onto the battlefield- as if it were some sort of weapon of mass destruction. they lost the battle, and they lost the ark. the philistines stole it.

in chapter 5, the philistines put the ark in a temple along with a statue of their god, dagon. maybe they thought that the ark was an idol, so they put it in with the other one. after all, the israelites were treating it like some sort of idol.

that box began to mess with the philistines. when they went into the temple the next day, they found the statue of dagon bowing to the ark. that should have clued them in, but they put the statue back up, and the next morning, there it was again, bowing to the ark.

then the people started getting tumors. and it didn’t take long before the philistines decided that the ark needed to go away. but how would they move it?

in chapter 6, they decide to make golden tumors (gross) and golden rats and put them in a trailer attached to a cart that the ark was on. then they found two mother cows that had just given birth to calves. they attached the cart to these two mother cows. the notes in my study bible explain that the two mother cows would have stayed with their calves by instinct; but if they were truly being led by God, then they would go against their instincts and carry the ark back to israel. and the cows did.
later the cows were sacrificed and burnt with the wood from the cart.

so you have the israelites using the ark as a weapon. and you have the philistines using the ark as one of their idols or gods. two nations looking to use God or manipulate Him, but in the end, it was He who was in control. He proves again, that He won’t be used as a good luck charm, a weapon, or even as the tool of a nation.

the only ones in the story who really seem to understand what’s going on are the cows.
they follow God’s leading even when it means doing what seems completely unnatural.
they follow God even if it means that they are living sacrifices.
they serve Him, even though it would cost them their children and their lives.
the philistines and the israelites attempted to use God,
but it was the cows that knew that we don’t use God, God uses us.


so be the cow. follow God’s leading- even if He leads you in a direction that is foreign, even if you have never traveled that way before.
be the cow; and understand that God uses us, we don’t use Him.
be the cow; and live a life that is sacrificed and dedicated to Him-