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We, The Sheep

             The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. (Psalm 23:1-3) 

This is another of the many passages that we either love or hate – or sometimes love and hate. It’s really humiliating. Consider the number of people who flock together to denounce Christians (and especially Conservative Christian) as “sheople” or “sheep.” I’ve chuckled at some of these people. First, they proclaim themselves to be the enemy of these sheople. But one of the main enemies of sheep is the wolf – or wolf pack. So as they proclaim the sheople to be dangerous, the image that comes to mind is of a sheep holding a wolf up against a wall and bleating, “Baa-lieve!”

But that doesn’t make it any less humiliating. Consider the stereotypes for sheep. Cute and cuddly as a lamb, but dumb as a brick once it grows up. It follows along where it’s called to go, or is herded either to the slaughterhouse or to be fleeced of its valuables. If you’ve read about shepherds and sheep, you’ll know that sheep can be stubborn, stupid, silly, and dirty. They take a lot of work to care for – and having met at least one sheep in my life - they smell. This is not the sort of label we want to wear.

But, if you read Phillip Keller’s book A Shepherd Looks At the Twenty-third Psalm, you can’t help but see the similarities between sheep and people, no matter how embarrassing it is. So, let’s step back and consider. The Lord is my Shepherd…

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He provides food. He meets my need for time to rest and digest.

He leads me beside quiet waters. He provides water. He makes sure it’s not scary or dangerous for me to drink.

He restores my soul. Oh, Lord, please. I so want this. He fixes my battered, broken, rusted out, beat up, tired soul. He replaces the parts that need to be, washes it, paints it, and makes it like new.

He guides me in the paths of righteousness… This involves His leading me to a land I do not know, as He led Abraham.

As Dallas Willard described it, this passage of Scripture teaches us that the universe is a perfectly safe place for us sheep. 

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