The donkey, ancient beast of burden. 

Common pack animal, carrying the goods of man.

Donkeys we have made ourselves, hauling loads of
heavy sin, our own load plus heaps laid on us by
those who will not carry their own.

Donkey-stubborn, we shoulder even the load to fix the load.
Loaded with sin, we will pay for the sin and bear the damage too.
Sin of self-arrogance added to the sin of self-ruin.
Double saddle bags. Heavy on both sides.

Donkeys can manage. They can survive in any wilderness.
We believe we are donkeys, resistant, strong, independent.
We admire our donkeyness and call it strength.

But our Creator who dreamed us, calls us sheep.
Weak are sheep, no strength to carry strain and load.

Sheep will just collapse under burdens.
They cannot be harnessed to pull,
they cannot bear a pack of goods,
nor a saddle for man.

Want to be free of double burdens? Sin and Effort?
Then be sheep. Sheep you are.
Be what you are.
Unable to carry yourself or anyone else.

We are an idea of Divine Imagination and
He who made us sheep, made us weak . . . to need Him.

He, the Shining Conqueror, tamed
the wild donkey of our independence
and Himself displaced the burden on our back.

He lowered Himself to the level of our abject humanity,
a humility, an abasement, we cannot imagine.
Our primal pride simply cannot comprehend
the mercied condescension of the God of All . . . .

He, who belongs on High, stoops to the utmost Low
to let us be the vehicle of His Sacred Life,
the carrier of His Very Being.

The donkeyness of our braying rebellion has been
tamed by Love.
And we are free to be sheep-of-no-burdens
whose load is laid on Him who took them to the Tree.
Both burdens, that of sin and that of effort.

And in the joy of a Triumphant Life, we carry Him
as conquered rebels, joyfully bearing His
easy yoke of a light burden
into a whole world of donkey people.

And we DO rejoice as Daughters of Zion,
Our King has come,
lowly and riding on a donkey, the foal of a beast of burden.

I am the donkey - do you understand?
I am the donkey!! conquered, tamed, obedient . . .
transformed into that other original kind of
being, the sheep I am.
Part of the Triumphal Procession of the King of Kings!
I carry Him - but only Him - no sin, no effort.
I carry Him into this Donkey World,
knowing Him as King and Conqueror.
MY King and MY Conqueror.

Later He will ride the Flaming white stallion
of Terrible Power and you will see Him.
For now His only vessel of entry
is by a donkey-turned-sheep.

Has He sent for you to be untied that He may
ride you into the world?
Has He tamed your wild stubbornness?

You may belong to others but it is enough to hear:
"The Lord has need of you."


Copyright © 2000 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick