THE SHEPHERD
While living in South
Africa, I visited a family in Lesotho. As we drove through the crusty desert
hills toward their village, I saw a lone shepherd walking by the roadside with
his meager flock. To my surprise, this shepherd’s flock consisted of a couple
of sheep, a goat, and a donkey. I always thought shepherds only had sheep, so
this sighting was remarkable for me. But there was more to it. In the few
minutes that I watched him out the car window, I was overwhelmed by what God
showed me. I could feel this man’s life. As he walked along the dusty road,
many miles away from the village, I knew this little group of animals meant
everything to him. They were his lifeblood, around which his whole world
existed.
Yesterday I was reminded
that in Biblical times, the shepherd slept with his flock. He never left off
from being with them and caring for them. That’s why Jesus can say in John
10:27: “My sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me.” The sheep would recognize the shepherd’s
voice because the shepherd lived with them every day, 24/7. The shepherd ate
with them, walked with them, slept with them.
He was there when they got uppity; he was there when they got sick;
he was there when they had their babies, when they had a bad day. He lived with
them and knew every one of them and cared about each one of their peculiarities,
and he deeply loved each one of them. Any of you who have multiple pets know
that they all have different personalities, and you know you love them all.
So it was natural that they would recognize his voice because he
was always right there with them.
I’ve been realizing lately that many things
that are normal things in the Bible, have not become normal in our lives. For instance,
there are more occasions of people seeing and having conversations with angels,
and more said about it, than there is about speaking in tongues. And speaking
in a God-given prayer and power language is pretty darn amazing!
If we look at the Bible events with open eyes,
we can see that angelic visits are the Bible normal. Healing is the Bible
normal. Tremendous victories are the Bible normal. I think we might need to become
more normal, according to what is stated in the Bible, don’t you? After all, it
is God’s manual for life, spiritually-infused life, that is. And we all can use
a bit more, or a lot more of that spiritually infused awesomely victorious
life, right?
The next time we pick up
the Bible, how about looking at what we’re reading and ask ourselves: “Is there
something in this story that should be normal for me? The things that are
Biblically normal, hey, I want them. How about you?
One place we can start is
with the shepherd, Jesus. Intellectually we know that He’s with us. But it’s
time to take additional steps in our relationship with Him: It’s called
CONVERSATION. When we want to get to know someone better, we ask questions.
Then we listen to the answer, and if we don’t quite get it, we ask more questions,
or ask them to say it in a different way, so that we understand. Sometimes we
even repeat it back, just to make sure we got it right. We do that with people,
but we don’t often do that with the Lord.
Questions like: “Is there
something you want to show me today?” “Why is that important?” “What could I do
for you today?” “Is there something I could be doing differently?” You will
have your own questions.
Think of questions you
might ask of a new acquaintance. “What do you do for a living?” “How about your
family?” “What kind of music do you like?” “Are you here for business or for
fun?” “Know any good jokes?” (Jesus does have a good sense of humor, in case
you didn’t know). It could get really personal and really interesting, really
fast, don’t you think?
This week, let’s make an
effort to get to know our shepherd’s voice better than we do today. He’s with
us all day and all night, so let’s make conversation with Him so darn normal.
Love, Carolyn
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