Tuesday, May 30, 2017

I Just Wanna Be a Sheep??

"But he brought his people out like a flock; he led them like sheep through the wilderness." -Psalm 78:52
"Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture." -Psalm 100:3
"We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." -Isaiah 53:6
"For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness." -Ezekiel 34:11-12
"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." -Matthew 9:36
"You will all fall away, Jesus said to them, for it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." -Mark 14:27
"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep." -John 10:14-15
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." -John 10:27

Throughout Scripture, those who follow God are likened unto sheep. I chose a couple of verses to highlight this, as you can see above. Over and over again, God refers to us as His sheep, and He as our Shepherd.

I get the analogy - sheep rely on a shepherd to guide them and keep them safe, and they will follow him wherever He leads. This is an excellent picture of how we are to follow God. But my question is, where does the comparison end? If you know anything about sheep, you know that they are commonly thought to be the dumbest creature on Earth (thanks to the Dodo bird going extinct). To be honest, I'm not keen on this comparison after thinking about that. So how far does the analogy go?

I like to use analogies a lot in my lessons, but no matter what I use, somewhere down the line the analogy breaks apart. It is next to impossible to come up with the "perfect" analogy that relates and aligns perfectly with whatever you are talking about.

So how far do we take this "sheep" thing? What does it mean for us to be sheep? What does that look like in life? What about ambitions and dreams? Are those okay? Are we supposed to blindly follow, just trust and obey no matter what? The Bible says yes to that last one, and I'm inclined to agree with the Bible. It is, however, a little less clear on ambitions and dreams.

There is no passage which says "Thou shalt not have ambitions or dreams." So it must not be a bad thing. But there is also no passage which says "Definitely have those things." So I guess it is kind of a grey area? Personally, I think it is natural to have dreams, hopes for your future and even ambitions. The trouble comes when those things get in the way of following God. When my hopes and my dreams pull me away from doing the will of God, I've got a problem. I'm left with a choice, do what God wants (follow Him) or do what I want (go astray). Many times, I find myself doing the latter. I let my desires pull me away from what I know God wants me to do, like a sheep going off the path to find a small patch of grass in the wilderness.

As I continue to think about it, I do kind of like the picture of us being sheep. It makes for a much easier life, right? We have God leading us, the Good Shepherd, and He promises to keep us and look after us. Wolves can't get past him, and He will always lead us toward green pastures. We find community amongst the other sheep, and receive love and care from our Lord. If we go off on our own, straying from the path He set before us, we become further away from His protection and the safety of the flock. We open ourselves up to attack.

And when I think about the Israelites as depicted in the Old Testament, I see them disobeying and falling away from Him all the time. I see myself doing the same. And in the grand scheme of things, our intelligence as compared to God's is probably even further separate than a man's and a sheep's intelligence. He's just that much bigger than us. I guess it just makes it easier for us to try to be more like sheep in our relationship with God. We have to trust that was He has in store for us is going to be way better than anything we could find on our own.

On a final note for this analogy analysis, God promises to search us out when we become scattered and alone. He will not forsake us or leave us lost. We can trust in that promise no matter what is happening in our lives. He will come through for us and bring us back to Him.

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