On radio this morning Glenn did something only he could – turning the story of a lost sheep at his ranch into the perfect analogy for making sense of the world around us today. About a year ago, the sheep on Glenn’s ranch were attacked by a pack of wolves and coyotes. The family assumed all had been lost until just a few days ago, when one of the lost sheep wandered back. It had survived.
“I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me on the ranch last week. I've never understood looking for that one lost sheep until we did actually have to look for one lost sheep. Last year, we had our sheep killed by coyotes, and one of them was cowering on our front porch when we came home. The coyotes had come and just got into the sheep pen and just killed them and eaten them, and one of them was up against our door just looking for our help, and we were gone. We just assumed that they had all been killed,” Glenn explained. “But then last spring, one of the guys who works on the ranch saw a sheep up in the mountains and said, ‘I think that's one of ours.’ But it disappeared, and we own this side of a mountain that, you know, you're just not going to get to everything.”
While at the ranch last week, Glenn’s daughter spotted a lamb out the window. Glenn explained that he put on his boots and coat and headed outside to try to catch it.
“I got my boots on and my coat and we all tried to catch sheep. Now, I'm a city boy. I have no idea what it takes to catch a little lost lamb. It's not as easy as it might seem. And it took about six of us and two 4Runners and some rope and finally the sheep was so afraid that he ran right into the cab of my 4Runner,” Glenn said. “And so he was inside the cab of this little vehicle. And we had to bring him back. And the kids and I, as we roped the legs of this lamb to put him in the back to bring him back down to the pen, the kids just talked to him and petted his face and tried to tell him everything was going to be okay. He was terrified. He had been out in the mountains for a year alone, and he had survived the coyotes and the wolves and everything by himself. I've been thinking about that for a long time. In fact, as we drove him back to the pen, the kids and I talked about that one lost lamb and what it takes for Jesus to go out and how we're all lost sheep. It was really a cool night with the kids.”
So how does this relate to the state of the world right now?
“I remember when I said ‑ after the election – I said to my own team and more to my own self, ‘Well, we all would have gone back to sleep. Maybe we're supposed to stay awake a little longer because, if we would have put the [Romney] in, the people who were awake today, probably a good portion of them would have gone back to sleep,’” he said. “And so I thought maybe that's the reason. But the other thing at the time, and I didn't realize it until yesterday, I said, ‘The Lord isn't just trying to save half the country. He wants to save everybody.’ Every single lost sheep has to be found.”
President Obama may have won the election, but his win sparked something in a lot of people – a lot of people woke and realized the problems with a large, bloated government, and people on both sides of the aisle have now resolved to fix it.
“But because the average TEA Partier no longer believes in Washington and no longer believes the answer is going to be found there, which is true. Because we don't have a Republican president, which might have been a progressive president just as bad in many ways, we have had to rely on ourselves. And because of that, the real story yesterday was not Syria. The real story was Colorado,” Glenn explained. “And that is an amazing story. That is the story of Americans saying, ‘I don't care what you say.’ We're doing it the right way and recalling two politicians that were the leaders on the gun control bills in Colorado. That's a huge story; that was seven people deciding, ‘We're not going to take that. We're going to recall them." Seven people – against the man, against Bloomberg, against all of the millions of dollars, against the entire progressive movement, against the state, against everything and anybody who wants power. Seven people stood and said, ‘I'm not taking that. I'm not doin' it.’ And they won.”
When times are tough, it is easy to get discouraged, but Glenn was adamant that there is a silver lining to even the most difficult situations.
“So the first thing I said, trying to lift myself up and my spirits up, was, ‘Well, maybe this happened because we would have all fallen asleep.’ The guys who are awake would have fallen asleep. Well, because the president was reelected, not only did we not fall asleep, we have retrenched ourselves closer to the truth,” Glenn proclaimed. “What we might have believed was the truth last year, I think we're closer to the truth now. And that truth is this: The power resides with you, the individual. The power is not in Washington. It is close to home. And you've got to shore your neighborhood up, your home up. You've got to shore up your state. And that's exactly what happened in Colorado. That is huge news and good news.”
“And the other thing I said after the election was, ‘God doesn't want to lose a single one. He's going to go after that lost sheep. And I don't know how it's going to work, but it is. Look at what's happening with our country right now… Look how many people are starting to agree with each other and saying, ‘Wait, I don't want to agree with that guy, but I do.’ We are starting now to understand that it is the power of the individual, and it is not the truth of the party, that is this blanket truth,” he explained. “And now, because Romney didn't win, because this president has told so many lies that now his own people are starting to look at him and go, ‘This doesn't even make sense,’ we don't have to preach that to them. They're seeing it. And we're finding ourselves coming together. And the lost sheep, us included, are starting to see the real truth and are coming home. Even though we've all survived in the mountains for a while, and we've almost been eaten by coyotes, we're all comin' home and we're learning to trust each other. That's a good thing.”
