Last Sunday we heard another of the Gospels which talks about sheep – the sheep knows the shepherd’s voice and follows him. We are the sheep; Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
Try this: open your bible to psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” and measure yourself against that first verse. It’s hard!! If the Lord is my shepherd, I hear only his voice, I follow only him. I don’t crumble under the pressure of office gossip; I don’t avoid answering the phone when my caller ID tells me it’s a needy friend; I don’t grumble at my spouse when s/he has an unwanted suggestion; I don’t turn on the TV to amuse my child instead of giving myself to him or her. I don’t shut out an elderly friend or relative in order to preserve some of my own time. Well, you get the idea. The “I don’ts” could go on forever, but the “I do’s” are a little thin. Still, The Lord is my Shepherd slides off of my tongue.
The challenge: close out one entire day by praying verse one of psalm 23…can you do it with integrity?
May I, and all of us, truly learn to discern the voice of our Shepherd in our own lives, and to have the fortitude to truly follow.
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