Grandpa’s Ranch

A Parable

Grandpa’s Ranch

Once upon a time, there was a man who bought thousands of acres when you could still get them for a hundred dollars or less per acre. He worked the land with his own hands and turned it into a thriving family ranch. He hoped it would stay in the family for generations. God blessed him with many children, and for decades the ranch flourished under his care.

When the old man died, the ranch passed to his children. Some were determined to carry on their father’s vision. Others saw the land not as an inheritance to steward but as an asset to cash in. They said the ranch would be worth far more as a resort, or something like it. But, of course, that would mean the end of the ranch.

So the second generation split. Those who wanted to “modernize” brought in consultants and developers who promised to improve grandpa’s old-fashioned ways. Slowly, the land began to change. Fields were sold off to fund “upgrades.” The fences fell into disrepair. The cattle thinned. Before long, you couldn’t tell what the place was supposed to be anymore.

Then came another generation, the grandchildren. They had grown up watching their parents mismanage what their grandfather had built. They saw the beauty of the old ranch, the goodness of what it once was. They didn’t want to sell off what remained. They wanted to reclaim it. Some of their aunts and uncles joined them. Many opposed them.

One grandson, frustrated with the family feud, suggested they forget the old place and start a new ranch somewhere else. But the days of cheap land were long gone. What grandpa bought for a hundred dollars an acre now cost ten times that, or more. At best, they could start a five-acre hobby farm, but nothing close to the thousands of acres grandpa had left behind.

It began to dawn on them that their grandfather had lived at a providential time and had worked not for himself, but for his descendants. The ranch was his gift to them: a foundation to preserve, not squander. Reclaiming it would be hard work, but easier than starting from nothing. And so, the grandchildren resolved that the best way to honor their grandfather was not to abandon his ranch, but to restore it... to fight for it, even when others accused them of tearing it down.

Let the reader understand.