The hardest job on the farm was loading pigs up on a truck to take them to slaughter. If you polled my Dad and brothers, I think this one would be unanimous.
We would back the truck up to the barn and run a ramp up onto it. It would have been nice if, just once, a pig walked up on his own. But it did not happen. It took four men with all the strength we could muster. We were all athletic back then and in good shape, too.
We would grab an ear or a tail or put a pail over its head and try to back it on. We would try jabbing with a pitchfork. Nothing worked. One thing I learned from all of this—I know what the phrase “squeal like a pig” really means.
When these pigs ran 250-400 pounds each, it was work. I have seen grown men exhausted after getting just one loaded. That pig did everything it possibly could do to slide back off that ramp and get away from us.
What does this have to do with anything? Years later I read in Hosea 4:16a, “For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer:” Heifers, like pigs, just drive their legs in and will not move. They would rather die, screaming and squealing, than give in.
Are you a backslider? Self dies screaming! The difference between us and pigs, though, is that God is not trying to drag us to death but to life. Do not exhaust God (Isaiah 43:24).
Why not give up any resistance to God today? He even loves backslidders. Hosea 14:4 puts it, “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.”
