There was a song I used to sing in Sunday School once upon a time:
"I just wanna be a sheep, baa, baa, I just wanna be a sheep, baa baa baa baa..."I know. I, just as you in this moment, am silently thanking God that I no longer have to sing songs where I have to recreate farm animal noises when I go to Church. However, in all seriousness, this song actually conveys (in very childish form) a fairly significant spiritual truth. "We are His people, and the sheep of his pasture..."
'Tis a shame that sheep are so stupid.
I will readily admit that I have a few literary "crushes" on great men of the faith who wrote very eloquent, touching, provoking, and at times, convicting, words to followers of Christ that I thoroughly enjoy and learn from today. Some of these men include, C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer and Oswald Chambers. Mr. Chambers has a devotional book entitled, My Outmost for His Highest. I have been working through it for the past year and so often, it puts into words things that I am already processing in my mind. The other day was one of those times. Chambers writes:
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him...I think, perhaps, I have mentioned this in a previous post, but I have a pastor who used the term "tortured soul" to refer to someone who was always stressing about "whether they were in God's will or not"-- in this case, namely, myself. I will attest to the fact that I often wonder if my life is lining up with God's plan for me, or if I have strayed far off the path--like a stupid sheep. It's my tendency to look around myself at difficult, uncomfortable or unfamiliar circumstances and make the immediate assumption that "something must be wrong because this doesn't feel right."
I am much too reliant on my feelings.
Do I have such a small view of God that I can't seem to believe that perhaps of this strange or difficult or uncomfortable circumstances around me could actually be this He led me into for the very purpose that I would learn something I could not otherwise?
If I am truly a "sheep" in Jesus' pasture, and if Jesus is truly the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), does this not mean that He is leading me from pasture to pasture (Psalm 23)? Perhaps, the pasture you or I are in looks different or strange or uncomfortable when, in reality, the water supply is more abundant or cleaner and the grass is not as used up as it was in yesterday's pasture. The sheep don't understand the Shepherd's reasoning for the pasture change, nor do they need to. Their job is to follow His leading.
There is something the Shepherd wants for me to get out of being here in this particular spot. If I am trusting God to engineer my circumstances, I need to trust Him and stopping kicking and fighting when He does.
And what about our tendency as "sheep" to wander while we "graze"? As sovereign-ly as God leads our lives (and I need to learn to trust that He is Sovereign), when we follow our natural instincts, desires and hungers--even good ones--we can stray away quite easily just as simply as a sheep who gets distracted from the flock and shepherd cause he was following a patch of grass that led him away. And yet, I need to realize that if I truly am submitted and desiring to do God's will, He, as the Good Shepherd, will not let me wander very far before He calls me back or goes out to physically carry me back (Luke 15).
So, about all these strange life circumstances I am in--which may be good, but new and uncomfortable--am I going to trust that Jesus led me here for a reason? Will I refuse to skip the character growth that I am supposed to learn in this chapter of my life? Will I choose to abide with the Good Shepherd right here in this strange, yet good, pasture until he chooses to lead me somewhere else?
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