Welcome back to the temple of grace and mercy.I am eager to share with you lesson learnt from the strained Chinese elephants.In the southern Yunnan Province of china lie the sprawling xishuagbannna National Nature Reserve by the border of Myanmmar and Laos.The Park which is a lush tropical Forest is home to most of Yunnan's endangered Asian elephants.It stretches for about 241.000 hectares, about one and a half times the size of London.Sometime in March 2020, a herd of about 14 elephants decided to leave the jungle paradise and headed north. They strayed hundreds of kilometers from their natural reserve, breaking into homes, giving birth while on the road, munching people's crops and guzzling their water.CCTV footage of the elephants showed them wandering around streets of various streets of various cities.
A team of Chinese based experts led by one professor Ahimsa campas Arceiz theorised that the elephants had left home to find more food for several reasons.One of the reasons they gave was that a growing elephants population had led to greater competition for food as the elephants population had almost doubled because of effort geared toward their conservation.
Whatever the reasons may be, the story took a dramatic turn in April 2021: the animals decided to return back to their home.The animals which had wandered about 500 kilometers from home- the farthest that any Yunnan wild elephants had ever gone- were mere 200 kilometers away from their xishuagbannna nature reserve by August 2021.And by today, they have finally returned! Amazing!. Even animals know their source! Like these elephants that wandered from their reserve,we all miss it sometimes.The history of mankind is replete with people who missed it and wandered away from God, their maker!. Like the prodigal son a heroic welcome awaits us once we are ready to make it up and return to our maker.The God of second chance
Several characters in scriptures from Adam and Eve, Abraham and his maid, Hagar missed it following his wife counsel to sleep with Hagar, to Samson disclosing the secret of his strength to Delilah also missed it to King David wandering far away from God when he took Uriah's wife and killed him.Apostle Peter also missed it denying Jesus Christ three times. Their stories did not end with mistake, they made but each one of them found a way and got back to God.Our God is a God of second chance for us.What we called failure is not the falling down but the staying down. Return again.Start again! Hold on and Hold out! Like the wandering Chinese elephants that return home.