Cattle Troughs & Christmas

This time of year we are feeding cattle. In the fall season and moving into winter, the summer grass is dying and mostly gone and the winter pastures aren’t ready for grazing yet. Cattle are fed everyday. Hay has to be put out and cattle troughs become well used on the farm.

A portion of the cattle are getting fed daily. Someone has to fill 5 gal buckets daily to take out to the pens and fill the cattle troughs. The weaned heifers and bulls are fed to help them continue to grow once they are no long being fed by the cows. Then there are the feed out cattle. They need to eat and grow as much as possible to get ready for slaughter.

We are also feeding our heifers who have their first calves. This group gets fed to help them continue to keep their body condition as they grow and raise their first calf. That first calf can be hard on them. At our max this fall, we were feeding 11 buckets of feed a day!

Recently I had to move the concrete feeders. The area around the feeders can be awful. With cattle standing around them, the areas can get muddy and nasty. I moved the feeders because the ground was so bad; I was slipping and lost my boots in the mud and the manure. In the winter and the mud, being around the cattle troughs can be miserable!

All you have to do is walk towards a feeder and the cattle come. They know that is the place where the feed will be. They don’t mind that the ground around is gross. They come hungry and ready to eat.

This time of year, there is so much focus on gifts and everything Christmas related. I’ve read and have heard a lot of sermons and such about Christmas. The meaning of it, the reason for it, but what are we doing with that today? Giving gifts? Telling the story?

With new perspective, can I ask you to focus on the manger?

Do know what a manger is? It was likely made of stone and hewn out to hold the feed or hay for the animals. The word manger comes from a Latin word “to eat.” Why was it important to the story that the Gospel of Luke record where the infant Jesus was laid. Yes, His birth was humble and lowly but wasn’t the point made already? They could find no room. They ended up in a stable, cold and smelly. Why lay the child in the manger? Why was that vital to the story? Did it really matter that Mary laid the baby in the manger?

God doesn’t do anything without reason. Everything has a point. Every word is intentional and for our benefit. Why make sure that the author recorded that the baby was laid where the animals ate? Read the scripture Luke 2:7 this way…”And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a ‘place to eat from’, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Jesus became the food. He was that sustenance to be consumed from the manger.

John records several instances where Jesus referred to himself as the Bread of Life. In the Holy Communion scriptures Jesus referenced the bread as His body.

Psalms says, “Taste and see that The Lord is good“. He was placed in that manger, in that feed trough, to remind us that He is our sustenance. He is our provision. That manger was supposed to remind us of where we can go to fill our spirits, where our hearts can be satisfied.

We are fed at the manger. We can be full at the trough.

But as I watch those cattle eating at the trough, can I tell you that it is so much more?? Can I tell you that we are supposed to be that manger? We are that cattle trough.

You and I, left here as the only way that some will ever hear the Gospel, are that cattle feed trough. We are that vessel made of earth, formed to serve as a place for Him to be offered from. Just like our cattle feed troughs offer food for the cattle, you and I have the Bread of Life in us and on us that we are to offer to those around us.

Christmas, yes is about the birth of Jesus. But it doesn’t end there. He told us, when He told Peter, “Feed My sheep“. Feed them. Be a manger. Be a trough. Offer Him as food to everyone around you.

For Christmas this year, don’t just give gifts, offer Him from your heart; be the manger. Be a cattle trough this Christmas and every day! They are hungry. They are in need. You may not have money to give. You might not can fix what’s broken in their lives but you can feed them.

Feed them. Be the manger. Give them a place to come and eat from. And once they taste Him, His goodness, you and they will never be the same.

***One more thought….don’t worry about being perfect. Just like those troughs get messy, our lives can be messy too. But that trough is there. It is available. So in your own messy life, busy and worn out, be available. We don’t stop feeding cattle because the area around the trough is messy; we feed in spite of it. You and I can do the same! Be the MANGER!

Merry Christmas!