For Those Entrusted with Animals and Land
by Kat
Creator and Good Shepherd,
You made the creatures we tend and the ground beneath their feet.
Before they belonged to our farms, businesses, or tables,
they belonged to You.
Teach us to know the condition of our flocks
and give careful attention to what has been placed in our care.
Guard us from confusing abundance with faithfulness.
When we are able to make an animal produce more,
grow faster, breed differently, or give beyond
what generations before us imagined possible,
give us wisdom to ask not only whether we can,
but whether we should.
Keep us from measuring a creature only by what we can take from it.
You commanded rest for the land and the working ox.
You send rain in its season
and remind us that no farmer can command the heavens.
When the ground is dry, teach us to ask.
When rain comes, teach us gratitude.
You condemned shepherds who fed themselves while neglecting their flock.
Make us different.
Teach us to cultivate without exhausting,
to breed without diminishing,
to harvest without stripping bare,
and to receive abundance without forgetting the Giver.
Give us the eyes of a shepherd:
attentive to weakness, sickness, hunger, rest, and flourishing.
When greater production asks us to sacrifice good care,
give us courage to say enough.
May the health of our animals, soil, communities, and generations after us
testify that we understood what You entrusted to our hands.
Make us good shepherds because we belong to the Good Shepherd.
Amen.
Kat is the founder of Bovella Dairy, a Colorado dairy company rooted in the belief that better food begins with thoughtful care for animals, farmers, land, and the people we feed. She lives in the Villa Park neighborhood of Denver, where her faith, gardening, cooking, and work in agriculture continually shape the way she thinks about stewardship and our connection to the places that nourish us.
