\u201cThe Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want\u201d
Question: What does a shepherd do, and how have you seen God like a shepherd in your life?<\/p>\n
In John 10, we learn from Jesus what a good shepherd does:
3: \u201che calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.\u201d
4: \u201che goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.\u201d
7: \u201cI am the door of the sheep\u201d. The shepherd places himself at the entrance to the sheep pen to guard against thieves, robbers, and wolves.
11: \u201clays down his life for the sheep\u201d;
14: \u201cI know my sheep and my sheep know me.\u201d The shepherd knows the sheep\u2019s weaknesses and tendency to wander, and knows all they need for life;
16: \u201cother sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also\u201d. The shepherd actively seeks out the lost sheep and guides them into his flock;
28: \u201cneither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.\u201d He guards and protects the sheep, he is always present, watching over them;<\/p>\n
3 \u2013 Calling and Leading: I have known people to whom Jesus has spoken aloud in clear words, and their changed lives is testimony to what they claim. That has not been my experience. For me, His calling was, and has been, in the stillness and silence of His presence, which draws me away from the flippant distractions of our world, pointing me to the better path He has prepared. While that leading may be quiet and gentle, when it is repeatedly given it is clear and unmistakable, and I can only ignore it by a deliberate choice of self-will.
I initially responded to His calling and was baptized when I was 12 years old, about to enter the turbulence of teenage years.
4 \u2013 Know His Voice: as we learn to follow His guidance, we come to know the way He speaks to us, and recognise His word as true. You may go on a long journey of searching and reading before you come to recognise that.
14: He Knows Me: and everything about me, all of my failings and wanderings. Yet even when I am unable to accept my failings, and would fall into despair through self-condemnation, He still loves me wants to draw me back to himself, and (11) gave His life for me.
28: He guards and protects me, even when I fail. I think I have shared before how during the turbulent stage of my mid-teen years, I was hanging around with a group of so-called friends, when I became aware most of them had gone, only to reappear about an hour later. When I asked, I was told, \u201cOh, we knew a goody-goody like you wouldn\u2019t want to be part of what we were doing!\u201d I hadn\u2019t wanted to be a \u201cgoody-goody\u201d, but other people could see His protection and guidance when I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
A minister I knew from many years ago had initially worked on a farm as a jackaroo. He related the story of when he was told to lead a flock of sheep across a creek, but they stopped and didn\u2019t want to cross. So, he was told to take one of the larger sheep and carry it across the creek, and he found the rest of the flock followed.
I have likewise been blessed by God\u2019s leading as He has carried other people through life, for me to follow in their path.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe Lord is my shepherd;I shall not want\u201dQuestion: What does a shepherd do, and how have you seen God like a shepherd in your life? What does a shepherd do? In John 10, we learn from Jesus what a good shepherd does:3: \u201che calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.\u201d4: \u201che goes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1080","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-verses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28300"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29689,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28300\/revisions\/29689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}