Sheep

Today I heard on the news how 1500 sheep leaped off a cliff in Turkey, one following after the other. 450 died. I did an internet search and found out more about it. The shepherds had left them grazing so the shepherds could eat their breakfast & were stunned as there was nothing they could do. The ones that jumped last were the ones that could be saved.

Had the shepherds stayed by them, they could have guided them away from the cliff. It's neat to know that our Shepherd will not leave us. We certainly are like sheep and go astray.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. John 10:7

We use to have sheep. Our first experience was not good at all, and we certainly learned a lesson the hard way. We got two lambs that were about 3 months old, and had hardly no human interaction at all. They had gone from the mama to us. They were totally confussed, and at the first moment they could, they got out of our fence and ran . . . and ran . . . and ran. We chased them for a couple of hours, and finally gave up. The next morning we got a call, someone asking us if we were missing some sheep that were grazing out in a field. We chased them again . . . even got some "volunteers" to help us. They ran and ran. Finally one of our friends that was helping us just flung himself on one of the sheep and down it went. When we got one, it was easy to get the other, as they do stay together.

The following spring we got some more lambs. But, this time we started out with babies that were just a few days old, and bottle fed them with milk from our goats. They followed our children around, and they "knew our voice", and yet, could easily be led astray by one of the other sheep if we were not guiding them.

I just love the correlation between us as sheep, and God as the shepherd.

Here is a good story about the hymn, Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us.