In this family‑worship talk for Big Camp 2021, the speaker addresses children and camp attendees with a vivid parable about an old donkey that falls into an abandoned well. The farmer, initially reluctant to rescue the animal, repeatedly dumps dirt into the well. Each time the donkey shakes the dirt off and steps up, gradually rising until it escapes. The story illustrates the principle of "shaking it off and stepping up" when faced with hardship. The speaker connects the parable to contemporary suffering, especially the challenges of COVID‑19, urging listeners to choose resilience over being buried by difficulties. The talk then transitions to explicit Christian teaching: sin’s penalty is death, but Jesus’ sacrificial death provides eternal life, removing the need for us to "shake off" sin on our own. Listeners are encouraged to trust Christ, share the message, and live in hope of Christ’s return. The session concludes with a prayer asking God to help believers endure suffering, shake off burdens, and step up toward the promised kingdom.
Chapters
Hey kids, welcome back to Big Camp 2021 where we are learning to tell somebody. In this morning's family worship, I want to tell you that you can learn to shake it off and step up. You can tell somebody that they can learn to shake it off and step up. What does that mean, shake it off and step up? Well, sometimes bad things happen to us, and when they do, Suffering is all around us. COVID has been really difficult for most of us. And we can either let those things destroy us, and we can be buried by the difficulties in our lives, or we can learn to give it a bit of a shake and let it fall off and step up. There was a farmer who had a number of animals. And when his animals got old, he would put them out in a back paddock. And it was just a place where he kept them. And he didn't have many old animals. He had an old horse and an old donkey. And, and when they got old enough and they passed away, then he would bury them. But he didn't, he didn't like to kill them. He just wanted them to have a good life. And he had this donkey that had worked for years and years and been such a good donkey that he retired her to a special paddock. And while she was out there eating one day, he saw her off in the distance underneath a tree. And she was eating, and he could hear her every once in a while, eaw. And it would make him smile while he was working in the barn or while he was working around the property, and to hear the old girl say hello. And one day he heard her say eaw, but it wasn't a normal eaw. It was like, eaw! She was panicked. And so he looked out in the field Couldn't really see her. And so he looked at the tree and he couldn't see her around the tree. Thought maybe she's behind the tree, but she wasn't quiet. She said it again. Ew! And so he thought, I better go out and find her and see what's wrong. Maybe she stepped on something or she's, you know, hurt herself or something. So he went out there and he went through the gate and he went out into the back field and he walked his way all the way and he's looking everywhere as he's walking and He sees the tree, so he walks out to the tree, and he thinks, "She's gotta be behind the tree. She's nowhere else here in the fenced paddock." And he goes around the tree, and she's not there. And so he looks along the fence line, and he watches, and he looks, and he's trying to see, did she get through the fence somewhere? Oh, she did. The fence has been knocked down over there. And so he starts walking towards it, and as he's walking toward the place where the fence has been knocked down, he can hear her again. Yeehaw! But he can't see her. And then he realizes what's happened. There's a hole in the ground on the other side of the fence. It's an old well that's dried up years ago, and so the farmer hasn't used it for years. He just put boards across the top of it, and then every time that he had extra dirt, he would take it out there and he would put it near the boards. One day I'll come out here with a wheelbarrow and the shovel and fill that well in. But he hadn't done it yet, so he had a big pile of dirt there, and he had the boards across the top, so it was okay, nothing would fall in. But as he got closer, he realized what had happened. The donkey had stood on the boards. Maybe she could smell a little bit of water down in the bottom of that well, and she stood on the boards and they broke. And when he looked down into the well, the donkey was looking back up at him. All four of her feet were on the bottom of the ground, on the bottom of the well, but her head didn't quite fit, and so she was like this, looking up at him. And he looked down at her and she said, "Ee-aw!" And he said, "Oh, ee-aw indeed, my little lady. What are we gonna do about this?" She was so far down there, he didn't know what to do. So he started walking back to the farm. Gotta find some tools, some rope, something that he can pull her up with. And as he's walking, he's thinking, "She's heavy. She's really heavy. If I put rope around her, first of all, how am I gonna get it around her and back up? I can't go down in the well as well. And then what am I gonna tie it to at the top? There's no tree there or anything. I'd have to call the neighbors and get some people to come out and help me lift her out of the well. And we'd have to set some kind of structure up that we could pulley her up. And oh, it could be a day's work. And that's— she's not helpful anymore around the farm. She's not worth anything anymore. It's not really worth the time or the money to effort to get people to come and help. And so he went in and he had his lunch and he talked to his wife about the donkey. And as he finished his lunch, his wife said, "Well, you know what you have to do." "Yeah, I know." And so as he was leaving the house, he went to the room that was just on the side of the house there, and he went into his office, and he had a lockup cupboard, and he unlocked the lockup cupboard where he kept the guns. And he took out one rifle, and he took out A bullet. And then he looked at the bullet and he thought, you know, that cost me $2.50, that bullet. I don't— she's not really worth $2.50. What? I don't know. I don't even know if I could shoot her anyway. And then he had an idea. Hmm, I guess there is that pile of dirt. And I've been meaning to fill in the well. And I mean, it sounds kind of horrible, but I would be making a grave for her anyways. And if she had died in the paddock, I would have made a grave and dug a hole and put her in it. And she's in a hole already, so maybe I'll just bury her. Oh, I know it sounds horrible, bury his donkey alive. But he went into the barn and he got his wheelbarrow. He put the gun back away and the bullet away, and he locked it back up. And he went in, he got a wheelbarrow, and he got a shovel. And he pushed the wheelbarrow all the way to the gate, and he walked out in the field, and he walked across the field and past the tree to where the fence had fallen down. He walked across the broken fence, and he walked right up to the edge of the well, and he looked inside, and there she was. "Ee-aw!" And he said, "Yeah, ee-aw, I know." And he walked over to the pile of dirt, and he used the shovel to fill up the wheelbarrow. And he filled it up as much as he could. Then he turned the wheelbarrow and he carried it over and he dumped the dirt in on the donkey. Ee-yaw! said the donkey. And the farmer felt bad. He didn't look in the hole. He just walked back over and he started filling the wheelbarrow back up with the next bit of dirt. But the donkey down in the bottom of the hole, when she said, "Ee-yaw!" she did this: she shook it off. And then all that dirt fell off her shoulders and off her back, and it landed on the bottom of the well underneath her. And she stepped up on that dirt. And then the farmer came over with the next load of wheelbarrow dirt, and he didn't even look in because he didn't want to see her face and how sad she would be. And he poured the dirt in, and the donkey said, "Ee-aw!" And he said, "I know, I know, old girl. Ee-aw." And he went back over and he filled up, started filling the wheelbarrow again. And as he was filling the wheelbarrow, the donkey, well, she shook it off and she stepped up. And the farmer came over with the next load of dirt, and he poured it in on the donkey, and he didn't look again. He just poured it in. He thinks she's got to be nearly buried now, up to at at least the top of her shoulders. And she said, "Ee-aw!" And the farmer didn't look, and he said, "I know, I know." And he went back and he started filling the dirt into the wheelbarrow again. And the donkey, what did she do? Well, she shook it off and she stepped up. And when the farmer came back this time, he looked in the hole because he wanted to see her eyes one more time and say goodbye. But the donkey was standing in the hole and there was no dirt. Then he looked more carefully and he realized she's higher in the hole than she was before. Oh my goodness, she's going to save her life. I guess we're going to save her life together. And the farmer poured the dirt in and he watched, and the donkey looked up at him and said, "Ee-yah!" And she shook it off and she stepped up on the dirt. The farmer got excited now, and he went back over and he filled the wheelbarrow up and he poured it in on the donkey, and she said, "Ee-yah!" And she shook and she stepped up. And he went back and he filled the wheelbarrow and he went and he poured it on her, and she said, "Ee-yah!" And she shook it off and she stepped up. And soon her her head popped out of the top of the well. And the farmer said, "We're doing it! We're doing it, girl!" And he went over and he filled the wheelbarrow again, and the pile of dirt was almost gone. He'd finished the job of the dirt as well. And he pours it on the donkey, and she shakes it off and steps up, and her paws, her front feet— she gets one leg out, and she rears back, and she puts the other leg out. And the farmer goes over and he gets another wheelbarrow, the last one, and he pours it in, and it runs down her back, and she shakes it a little bit. And then she steps up with her rear feet And she gives a little bit of a jump and she lands outside of the well. Well, the old donkey walked to the broken fence and she looked at the broken fence and she looked back at the farmer and she said, "Ee-yaw!" And the farmer said, "Yeah, yeah, I know. I need to fix that fence." And then she stepped across back into her field and walked over to her tree. And lived happily ever after. You know, you and I, we can live happily ever after. We know that one day Jesus is coming and all of the problems in this world are going to be ended. There's going to be no more sin, no more suffering, no more death, no more loss, no more agony, no more COVID, no more anything that makes our life bad. It's going to be only salvation in Christ and eternal life with him. But until then, He gives us courage and he gives us hope and he gives us bravery. And even when we're in the deepest, darkest place and we feel like it can't get any worse than this, sometimes when that happens, somebody throws dirt on us and we think it did get worse. And when that dirt lands, we have a decision to make. We can either be buried alive or we can shake it off and step up. So be like that donkey and recognize that in this life, if we just shake it off and step up, we can get out of a lot of the difficulties that we have. But there's one that we can't shake off and step up out of, and that is the wages of sin is death. That's a gift. What happens after that? The gift of God is eternal life. When we shake it off and step up, we fall back down and we never get out of the sin problem, except that Jesus took our place. Jesus fixed that problem. Jesus gave his life so that we don't have to try to shake off sin and step up. Instead, we look at Jesus and we just fix our eyes on him, and he starts our faith and finishes our faith, and he walks us into the kingdom so that we too can live happily ever after. So if you have little problems in your life, I'm going to encourage you to shake it off and step up, and maybe tell someone else to shake it off and step up. But Remember, and tell them too, that Jesus makes it— he shakes off the sin problem. He's the one who fixes evil. He's the one who takes death away. He's the one that takes sin away. He's the one that gives us eternal life. And when Jesus shakes it off and steps up, we'll see him in the clouds of glory. We'll see him coming back and defeating sin and Satan once and for all, and selfishness will be no more. There will only be love and kindness and the kingdom of God. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Dear Lord, we know that you never leave us or forsake us, but sometimes there's struggles in life, and sometimes it seems like the dirt just keeps flying in and landing on us, even when we're at the bottom of the worst thing that could happen, and we feel like we're going to be buried alive. Help us to remember to shake it off and step up. There's always something— you say, be joyful always— there's always something to focus on, even if it's just the cross where you endured because of the joy set before you. Help us to endure the sufferings that come our way and to shake it off and step up so that we can see the light of day, so that we can step up and step out of that old well like that old donkey and be free to roam in your kingdom and to help others find their way up and out as well. In your name. Amen.
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