Salt Lick Stone
BUFFALOES AND THEIR SALT LICKS
I packed a 25-pound salt block through a couple feet of snow out to the horse corral. Animals need their salt, too. In fact, in the old days, the great buffalo herds were wise enough to know when their bodies needed extra salt. Those huge old shaggies knew exactly what patches of dirt held a high salt content. They would graze in that direction and spend a day or two licking the ground, getting the nutriments they needed. As you can imagine, such sites earned the name salt licks.
Finding Salt Licks
Now, they weren’t always obvious to the human eye. One old boy headed up to the Dakota Territory to do a little buffalo hunting. He arrived early in the Spring and built himself a nice cabin, complete with rock fireplace.
One night a noise outside caused him to wake up. When he went to the front door, he couldn’t open it. Something was on the porch blocking it. Turned out to be a buffalo.
He thought about shooting it right on his porch. But he knew a dead buffalo would block the door permanently. So, he decided just to wait it out.
All night he heard more and more buffaloes move into the region. By daylight he could peek out enough to see his cabin surrounded by thousands of beasts.
Solving the Problem
As he contemplated how to get to his horse, the buffalo began to lean on the cabin walls. Fearing for his safety, he ran and crawled into the stone fireplace, just as the cabin walls were trampled flat by the buffalo. Then he noticed most of the animals stood placidly around licking the dirt.
He had built his cabin right on top of a salt lick!
Somehow he managed to walk past the buffalo without stampeding them. He mounted his horse and rode out of the herd.
Gaining Wisdom
No one rebuilt on that site until long after all the buffalo disappeared. Buffalo are smart enough to know when they need extra nutriments. And apparently nothing gets in their way. I wish we were that persistent in securing our spiritual nourishment.
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6).
Excuses, Excuses
I’d like to think we’re as good as those old buffaloes. We’d push our way through all obstacles to get to God’s Word, to God’s worship, to appropriate God’s work and will in our lives. We’ve got to be living the generation of wimpiest excuses for missing out on spiritual nutrients. Even shaggy, old buffalo are smarter than that.
Stephen Bly
Award-winning western author of over 100 fiction and nonfiction books
Circa 1996
Salt Lick Image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Getting Your Salt Licks” audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.
Sign Up on BlyBooks.com on blog page to receive RSS feed by email for podcast blog notices. Related blog article with podcast embed will arrive every Tuesday and Thursday. Look to the right of the LINK PAGE for “Subscribe to the Blog via Email” and “Enter your email address”.
Would greatly appreciate if you a) SUBSCRIBE, b) RATE, c) REVIEW the podcast. FULL PODCAST INFO: https://bit.ly/3xCxckS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another eye-opener for how we need to seek God to get all we need.