Some of you who read my last blog post about what the Kurdish villagers used to cook and heat with may have wondered if burning dried cow dung gave off any odor. It was odorless.
Here is something you may not have thought about. Each family needed a sizeable area to dry the cow dung for next year’s winter. They had to share space on the outskirts of the village for that purpose. The issue was, how can I tell my drying cow dung from everyone else’s?
They came up with a very ingenious way to tell the shaped piles apart. While each pile was still wet, they put their own personal “brand,” with their bare hands, on the pile. When it was dry there was no way of changing it. It could be a handprint, or some special mark. Each family had their own “branding” mark. It was so cool to see. Hundreds of individual piles, similar yet different.
The Bible says God “branded” Cain so that no one would kill him. We don’t know much about the mark God put on Cain, but it was visible and meant don’t touch me!
As followers of Jesus we too are branded. Our brand is not physical but spiritual. It means we belong to God. By our words and lifestyle, He wants everyone to see we belong to Him and no one else. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;” 1 Corinthians 6:19 NIV
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