The first casualties of upheaval can be love, kindness, and patience. But crisis is also a moment when love for God & one another can spring up. For 150 days, starting on 17th March 2020, I will write 300 words based on one of the 150 psalms in the bible. How can I find and give love in the midst of coronavirus?
My Father’s Day present was a book about how to draw animals. There are 150 or them. Last night my daughter and I were practising. We did flamingoes, penguins, pigs, hippos and sparrows. Then we came to the sheep. Drawings of sheep are really only a cloud with eyes and a leg – they are fairly easy.
Of all the animals that God could choose to describe His people – he chooses sheep. He could have chosen any number of intelligent, beautiful, powerful, fast or cunning animals – but he didn’t, He chose domesticated sheep. Sheep are now found all over the world – and so we are familiar with them. But they are slow, not very bright, noisy and at times smelly.
Psalm 100 says clearly that God’s people are His sheep:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 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. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
He made us, we are his, we are his people – the sheep of his pasture.
Is it a good reason to praise God, because this psalm is full of praise? Is being God’s sheep a reason to praise? Wouldn’t it be better to be God’s lion or God’s stallion or God’s dolphin?
The thing about sheep is that they almost always have a shepherd. There are not many wild sheep in the world – wandering around with no-one keeping an eye on them.
So the reason to praise God is not so much that we are sheep – but that we are HIS sheep. He is our shepherd. He leads us, he guides us to pasture, he watches over us.
So, if I get to have God as my shepherd – I definitely don’t mind being a sheep.
God, remind us today that you are our shepherd.
Love, Matt