And.....The cow tripped over the moon

Whatever would we do without our Grandblessings? That's  the question I asked my wife SueAnn as we both commented on Amelia excitedly telling us about this amazing book that was her reading material for the BOOK WEEK special.

Amelia is in Grade 2 at the local school and was so excited as she relayed all of the book and it's moral to us in graphic and a very amusing way.

THE COW TRIPPED OVER THE MOON was written by Tony Wilson and illustrated by Laura Wood and tells the story behind the famous nursery rhyme The Cow Jumped Over the Moon.

If you get a chance it is a MUST to read and is jammed full of great things to learn not just for the younger generation but for all of us.

The Cow tripped Over the Moon, is a story of perseverance, endurance, training and triumph.

Tony Wilson is a great author and on his website he has a video clip of him reading to his son Jack, who has cerebral Palsy. Indeed the book is dedicated to his boy with these amazing words "To my beautiful Jack - you will jump moons."

It's a very moving clip and I must admit that it made me fill up a bit.

The book explains how the cow tried and tried to actually jump over the moon and it took her eight attempts but hey! She did it in the end. She contended with meteorites, sunburn, tripping, and all sorts of hurdles in "moon attempts - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 "until at last on moon attempt 8 she made a successful jump just as dawn broke.

It's a very funny yet moving story especially when you know about Jack and his Dad and the special bond they have going.

So I thank our Amelia for bringing it to our attention and I am so glad that she did.

Perseverance, endurance, training and triumph - what great words and what great accomplishments - so what can we learn form all of this and through this amazing and thought provoking children's book?

I personally loved it - I loved reading it through the second and third time as well,  and the illustrations by Laura were magnificent and sort of said it all and enhanced the story greatly.

I would just like to share with you the very inspiration I personally took from the children's book - Those words of perseverance, endurance, training and triumph are all so important in our Christian walk with God. We certainly need perseverance and endurance to face the world out there, especially in today's world where Christianity is scorned, mocked and ridiculed as old-fashioned and useless.

In Romans 8 Paul talks about the feelings of perseverance and endurance when he describes the world as a pre-season workout.

We will have, and continue to endure, all kinds of pain, suffering, exhaustion and yes! even misery. But it's not for nothing.

Not only does God use our pain as a tool to make us stronger in our faith and character, but he also promises that our endurance will pay off.

Just like our Cow heroine, we will need perseverance and endurance to fight the good fight and to be victorious in the end.

God will use all of these trials for our good and we will, one day, reap the benefits of our patience, endurance and faithfulness.

The cow in our story trained hard to become an expert JUMPER over the moon - she failed many times but hey! she kept on training.

You know, as a Christian we have to train hard to counteract satan as he tries so hard to pin us down, make us fail and then spit us out broken and believing that we are just too bad for God, that "He couldn't possibly love us because look what we did here and or look what we said there."

We can't just keep on 'training'ourselves. We just can't do it by ourselves - many have tried to pull themselves up by their boot laces, and failed miserably - It is only when we become increasingly aware of the areas in our own personal struggles and start relying on God's strength and His alone that we can overcome.

In the end we will be triumphant IF we decide "enough is enough" and stop thinking that "we can do it." Unfortunately many of us Christians still think we can do it on our own and it's in those times when satan will target us because it's obvious he has had success there so why wouldn't he keep on keeping on?

It's a never ending cycle of trying so hard not to fall into the ditch of failure when all we really need to do is to believe that our God, our Saviour, who died for us, is way bigger than all of these 'ditches' that we keep falling into.

To break the cycle of continuing sin, we need to realise that we just can't do it by ourselves - what we have done in the past isn't working. Satan knows we will fail so he keeps on flaunting it at us.

I was told a story once of a guy, when he was off to work in the morning, fell down a ditch. He dusted himself off, climbed out and went on his way.

The next day, he went past the ditch, looked at it and would you believe it, he fell in again. Once more he clambered out, dusted himself off and went to work.

The next day, he walked around the ditch, and thought to himself  AHA I did it, patted himself on the back and promptly fell into the ditch.

The next day he went past the ditch, looked back over his shoulder, chuckled to himself, fell into a hole and ended up in the ditch.

Finally, the next day he walked on the other side of the street. What did he learn? That He couldn't do it.

Many of us, lose our triumph because we really do believe we can overcome the wiles and temptations of satan on our own - believe me we can't! Change your strategy, God is so much bigger than your stumbles.

God will give us the victory and the triumph, if we choose to believe that he can. But, if we choose to believe that we can rely on our own strength, then we will like that guy in our story keep falling into the ditch.

John 15:5 says:- "We can do nothing apart from God"

So when you have your own moon the jump over, you will only achieve success, when we truly believe that God is our strength and he is our mainstay. Through Him and Him alone will we have success. We can't rely on our own strength - there are far too many ditches out there.

God bless you this week as you hand your 'ditch falling' and 'moon jumping' over to your Creator God - the only one who is far far bigger than any addiction and continuing sin in our lives.