Llamas, Buckets, & Lessons

This past weekend my family went to one of those drive-thru safari places in Commerce where you get to feed llamas, ostriches, camels, and other animals that definitely don’t belong in the backroads of North Georgia. They hand you a bucket of feed, and the animals come right up to your car and help themselves. It sounds simple enough—until you realize some of these critters have figured out the system. Most of them are happy to eat from the bucket. But a few of the “wise ones” have learned that stealing the entire bucket is the real jackpot. Why settle for a few handfuls when you can have it all?

And the llamas… they were something else. They worked in perfect organization. One stood stubbornly in front of our Jeep, refusing to move, while the others surrounded the car and ate us out of every angle. It was like a well-rehearsed heist movie starring farm animals.

It made me think of Jesus’ words: “Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Sometimes we settle for whatever is right in front of us when God invites us to see the bigger picture. Wisdom isn’t just about grabbing what’s available, it’s about seeing what really matters and choosing that.

And those llamas? They remind me of the way the church is meant to function. Paul says we’re one body with many parts (1 Corinthians 12). By ourselves, we might manage a few bites. But when we work together, using our different gifts, we can surround the world with God’s love from every angle.

So maybe the lesson from the safari is this: be wise enough to seek what truly matters, and be united enough to go after it together. If llamas can figure out how to work together for a bucket of feed, surely we can work together for the kingdom of God.

May God hold you,
Rev Chris Hester