New Thoughts (09/16/09-09/19/09)
I am sure that, were I to look for it, I could find commentators who would explain how John has clearly collected together several different sayings of Jesus here. That may or may not be the case, but I do not find it necessary to accept such a proposition. However, the course of Jesus’ exposition does break neatly into several discrete sections, whether related at the same time or not. The first three of these sections deal directly with the imagery of the preceding parable (Jn 10:1-5): specifically, the door, the thief and the shepherd. That Jesus does not offer any explanatory note regarding the doorkeeper suggests that this particular aspect of the parable was not critical to understanding its message.
The brief mention of the flock in verse 16 is also a clear connection to the imagery of the parable, although of a less direct nature. It is a natural flow of thought. Jesus has just explained His office as the Shepherd which, as I explored in the preceding study, fulfills a whole body of prophetic writing from the Scriptures. It is another sign of Messiah, the Shepherd David, raised up by God to rule the unruly sheep. This Shepherd goes on to explain what Israel has been denying of its own heritage: He is not just God of Israel, but of all the nations. His sheep are not solely Jews, but are from amongst all the peoples.
Finally, having spoken of the extent of His flocks, and having identified Himself as the Messiah for which Israel had been waiting, He returns to the theme of His relationship to the Father. Having put His listeners in mind of Messiah, He must also clear up their misconceptions regarding Messiah. They have been looking for a man, a Saul of old. They have been looking for one of impressive might and military prowess to come and kick the Romans out, to restore the pride of the kingdom. The Shepherd they have not wanted, have even despised. David, coming after Saul, did not look that impressive to the eyes of man. But, in God’s sight, he was the one. By God’s power, that unimpressive man proved infinitely more to Israel’s good than ever Saul was. Saul never learned to trust in God. David never learned not to.
With this by way of introduction, then, I shall consider the passage before me along those dividing lines I have indicated, taking each image in turn, that I might more fully taste of what Jesus is feeding me here. Again, I will stress that the fact that I choose to look at this passage in five sections is not an endorsement of the idea that John was collecting thoughts from different times together. Neither am I denying the possibility that he did. In most respects, the question is not germane. However, as John has thus far been relaying a running narrative of events, my inclination is to hold that this truly was a single message from our Lord and Savior.
The Door
It may seem odd that Jesus identifies Himself first with the door of the fold. In the flow of the parable, it is clear that the shepherd is the focal point, and the door of the fold seems to be more a detail necessary to the image, but not necessarily the meaning. One would expect, as He explains His meaning, that He would move straight to the main point, only afterwards filling in how the other details add to His point. Jesus, however, chooses to treat on each item in His parable in order of appearance, and so the door is the first thing touched upon.
This in itself is an interesting detail to choose. “I am the door.” What is to be made of that? Well, clearly the whole point of that sheep fold is that there is only the one way in and out for the sheep. This makes it easier for the shepherd to manage his flock through the course of the night. The shepherd need only lay himself across that doorway, and the sheep are certain to remain in the fold. Nor is the wolf as likely to seek entry when there is a man blocking the way.
The point, then, is that Jesus presents an exclusive access. This is amplified by His following comment that those who enter through Him will be saved. The clear implication is that it is only those who do so who will be saved. Others may find a way into the fold, but they will find no security in there for having done so. Indeed, all those others are to be counted thieves, the second image to be discussed. But, before I move on to that, this point provides a clue to what the fold represents.
The fold is not Israel, although it is clearly located in that land. Or, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say this is not the only fold just as this is not the only flock. Where He has other sheep, there will clearly be other folds to keep them. This is jumping about a bit, so far as the order of His presentation is concerned, but since He never directly explains the fold, it is that much more intriguing to consider. What is it that Jesus is the door to?
Well, in the greatest sense, of course, He is the door to Life. A nearly parallel conclusion to this is that He is the door to the kingdom of heaven. I say nearly parallel because the one is inseparable from the other. To be possessed of Life is to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and to be a citizen in that kingdom is assuredly to possess Life. Any, then, who would enter into that kingdom must enter through the door, and He is the Door.
What makes this understanding unsatisfactory, though, is that there are thieves entering the fold. Such are hardly likely to be entering the kingdom of heaven, nor are they going to be discovered having found a backdoor route to Life. The Church, however, the earthly embassy of that kingdom, is another story. Others enter into the church who are not truly of the church. We know that. He knows that. It has ever been the case. It was most abundantly the case with the Temple as Jesus found it. All Israel came to Temple, or as near as makes no difference. But, not all, in fact it would seem a very small minority in the leadership, were actually legitimate sheep. They had entered, but not by the door.
This is the state of the church in every age. There is the visible, which may be quite large in number. Then, there is the invisible, the True Church, which is assuredly smaller in number, but no less powerful for that. The True Church is not, after all, a matter of numbers. It’s a matter of how one came in. Those who came in through the Door have found in the Church a place of salvation and security. They do not need to pursue messages of prosperity, for having entered through the Door, they are quite aware that they can go in and out as He leads, and that they will be led so as to be well pastured. This does not need to be a concern for the true sheep, because they have been made the property of the True Shepherd. In Him, under His guidance, they have life and life in abundance. It is well with their soul, for the Lord is their Shepherd and they know they shall have no want (Ps 23:1).
This fold, then, is the house of God. Many have come in who do not properly have business there. Many sheep in that fold are not His. When the time comes, He will not call them out, nor will He lead them, for they belong to other shepherds. This is not a direct issue of the parable at hand, yet it is clearly understandable from what He teaches. More to the point at present is the matter of the thief.
The Thief
If the fold is the house and the sheep are its members, then the thieves, “all those who came before,” are those who posed as shepherds but were not. They did not enter through the Door, and the unspecified keeper of the door did not grant them entry. They have climbed in by other ways and seek to mislead, to get the attention of the sheep and lead them out to destruction. These, then, are those false leaders in the Temple. To carry it forward to our own day, these are the false preachers, the false evangelists, those who proclaim a different gospel, for which doing they shall be accursed (Gal 1:6-8). And, indeed they are, for no thief shall enter the kingdom.
It is only for this season of sojourn that such dangers trouble the flock. And yet, for the True flock, it is no danger, for the sheep hear only the voice of the True Shepherd, and no other will they follow. Here, again, I find myself straying from the order in which our Lord explains His parable. But, the thoughts are so interconnected as to make a strict order of consideration most difficult to maintain. For now, I will simply say that even though we remain in this world we are not truly of, yet we are secure in the care of our Shepherd. He has placed His folds here in this land, and He remains at the door. It may not always seem so to us. The proliferation of thieves in the house may be disconcerting. The sheep who mingle in though from other flocks may be a bother. But, they are not a danger to those whose ears are listening to the Shepherd alone.
The Shepherd
The Shepherd is the same as the Door. Jesus began by declaring Himself the Door of the fold. Now, in verse 11, He also identifies Himself as the Shepherd. This ought not to be surprising, for as I already noted briefly, the shepherd is generally the door of the fold. Unlike the modern pen, the fold of that day might be little more than a stone wall topped with thorns, and the doorway but a gap in that crude wall across which the shepherd will lay himself when the sheep are in. When the sheep are not in, there is no need for a door.
Jesus is more than just the shepherd of the sheep, though. He is the Good Shepherd. The sheep have suffered many shepherds who were not good. The prophetic texts are full of God’s offense at these false shepherds, as I saw in my previous study. For now, just consider the opening points of two of the major prophetic messages in this regard.
“Woe to those shepherds who are destroying My sheep and scattering them” (Jer 23:1). These shepherds are the ones who are supposed to be watching out for the sheep, making sure they don’t get lost, making sure they’re fed and watered, making sure that predators don’t come in and scatter and destroy them. Yet, they themselves are doing the scattering and the destroying. The shepherds have been found to be wolves!
“You eat their fat. You clothe yourselves with their wool. Yet, you don’t feed them” (Eze 34:3). Not only do these shepherds fail to function in their role as regards the sheep, they don’t even have the good sense to act in their own best interest. If their food is the sheep and their clothing is from the sheep, surely they ought to care for those sheep even if it’s only to provide for themselves! But, even this is too much for them. They are wolves. They come in. They tear. They destroy. They take their fill and then they depart, leaving the bloodied carcass behind. As for those which have been scattered? Easy prey, it’s true, but with appetite sated for the moment, the wolf can’t be bothered.
These are the worst of the false leaders who plague the Church. But, there is another plague which may not seem so clearly evil. Yet, it is just as terrible in its impact. These are the leaders who simply don’t care. They see that there are wolves. They know that the wolves are what they are. But, they do nothing about it. These are still counted as shepherds by the Shepherd, but not true shepherds. They show by their passivity that they are no better than hired hands. When danger threatens the flock, they run away because they’re “working only for the money and don’t really care about the sheep” [NLT].
They come to the fold as if they were real shepherds. They have taken the training, passed the boards. They have made claim to being called, and have found those who will confirm their calling, yet they were not called. They enjoy, perhaps, the prestige of this office. No, such an idea does not fit the image of the shepherd; certainly not the shepherd as he was in that time. But, it fits our present condition. Hey! The pastor gets a pulpit. He gets to speechify. He can influence all these people. Maybe he gets a TV show, a national audience. Maybe he gets invites to visit with the important people of the day. This is one cause for the poseur to come.
Others are more explicitly ‘in it for the money’. They are snake oil salesmen who have found a new product to hawk. They don’t believe in this product any more than they did the elixir they used to sell. But, it sure is an easy sale to earn easy money. Nah. They may not be landing in the lap of luxury here, but it sure beats working for a living! But, when the sheep are troubled? When the sheep are threatened? Hey! He didn’t sign up for that. He’s outta there! Let somebody else handle the crises.
Too many who lay claim to the office of pastor or deacon or elder or whatever title may be in the offing have no great concern for the people of God. They have concern for the offering plate. They have concern for their housing, their clothing, their cars. They talk a sufficiently good game to keep the money coming, but when it comes to the difficult parts of pastoring? No interest. For these, as much as for the thieves, Jesus has no tolerance.
The real shepherd, like the Good Shepherd, lays down his life for the sheep. More than anything, this thought should convey the point that it is a deadly serious business, this pastoring the flock of God. It is not to be entered into lightly. The fundamental task of the shepherd and the pastor alike is to defend the flock against those who would do them harm. If there are those who come with their false doctrines, it is the pastor’s purpose to see that the falsity of those doctrines is made plain to his charges. If there are those who would come whispering doubts, it is the pastor’s charge to shout the certainty of the Truth.
There have been seasons in the history of the church when this call to lay down one’s life for the sheep has been a literal possibility. There are places where that season is now. And, in those seasons, it has ever been the case that God made certain such shepherds were in place as would answer the call in full.
Now, the NET notes that the death of the shepherd would prove disastrous to the sheep in the world of real sheep. The shepherd being their only defense, if the attackers can take down the shepherd, then the sheep are theirs for the taking. In God’s Providence for His Church, it is assuredly not so. Of course, this parable has primarily to do with the Christ of God, the Good Shepherd. Indeed, as concerns His immediate mission, the death of the Shepherd was and remains the only means of securing the sheep. Apart from the death of Christ and His subsequent resurrection, there is no peace for the sheep. There is no fold in which to rest in safe certainty.
As regards those shepherds the Good Shepherd has appointed, though, there is, as I have said, often the call to truly lay down one’s life for the sake of the sheep. Where that call has been answered, the Church has not generally suffered for it, the sheep have not been destroyed. Indeed, it has long been understood that the blood of the martyrs is the very seed of the Church [Tertullian]. There may be, is bound to be a certain immediate disruption, an emotional blow to the flock. Yet, the flock, though they have lost their immediate shepherd, is not without their Shepherd. They are not destroyed with the loss, but are actually strengthened. The flock is not dispersed by striking down the shepherd, but is instead multiplied.
Thus it was with the death of Christ, and thus it is with the death of any one of His saints, for they are precious in His sight, and He will not suffer their death lightly. He Who is keenly aware of each sparrow that ends its span on the earth is fully aware of the life of each one of His sheep and of each shepherd raised from among those sheep. He is not some steely, unfeeling general to whom the foot soldiers are unknown, expendable material of war. He was raised from among the sheep Himself. They are His. They are known to Him; each one of us known by name. There will be those who must be sacrificed, but He will not take that sacrifice lightly, and He will make the return worth infinitely more than the sacrifice. If one sheep must be lost, rest assured, that myriad sheep shall be gained by that loss.
Listen! John, who relays this series of events to us, understood it all quite well at the end of his years. See, in that his Lord had truly and fully laid down His life for us, he had seen the fullest proof of his Lord’s love for him. “This is how we know” (1Jn 3:16)! You can’t undo that certainty. We know! He knew, also, the implications. “Just so, we should lay down our own lives for the brethren.” The slave is not greater than his master. The example that has been set for us is one we are called to follow, not just admire. It is part and parcel of assessing oneself as the least among the brethren. Having been raised up to the position of shepherd, even such a shepherd as the apostles were called to be, establishing the Church of Christ in the world when there were but the twelve of them plus Paul; this did not make them indispensable. This did not give them perks, did not somehow mean that they were to hold that the trials others experienced were beneath their dignity. No! They were called to hold their office as their Lord held His: ever ready to willingly sacrifice it all, even life itself, if the sheep will be benefited by it.
What hits me as I write about this is that our Great Shepherd, like those He has established in His service, was also raised up from amongst the sheep. To be clear, He was ever the Great Shepherd. He is that very one of whom David wrote in Psalm 23. But, what David held to by faith, having seen in part what lay ahead, we hold in certainty, having the historical fact of a risen Christ upon which to rest our faith. He came to dwell amongst those He shepherds. He came to become intimate with the life of the sheep that He might better serve as their Shepherd. No, He did not require improvement. How does one improve upon the perfection of God? Yet, for the sheep, there is benefit in seeing that the Shepherd is one of their own, and fully intimate with their ways. It allows a greater bond, and encourages a greater trust.
In Him we are also given to understand that the shepherd in God’s kingdom differs from the shepherd of the earth in this one respect: When God’s Shepherd died, God raised Him back up from death through the blood of eternal covenant (Heb 13:20-21). The Shepherd is as a seed. The seed brings life out of death, and so, too, the Shepherd. This same God, who both raised and was raised, is the One who equips me to do His will in every good thing. He works in me to bring about what is pleasing to Himself, and does so through Jesus the Christ, to Whom is all glory for all eternity! That’s the whole message of that passage from Hebrews. He is able, and He does it! Away, then, with these efforts to work our way into His good graces. He works, or the work is futile. The Shepherd labors that the sheep might rest at ease under His care. He leads and we have but to follow. He calls and we have but to listen.
The Flock
With that, Jesus turns His thoughts to the flock. “I have other sheep beyond this fold, who must be brought together with this flock.” This comes by way of correcting Israel’s misconceptions about itself. They were not an exclusive club intended to reject all who would serve the God of Israel. They were supposed to be God’s best advertisement. But, they had represented the case differently. Accept the Gentiles as true believers? It was unthinkable! Oh, sure, there was the court of the Gentiles at the Temple, but really, that was only there to milk them of their valuables, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like they could be allowed any closer to God than that. They must be held at a distance.
But, Jesus says, “I must bring them also.” It is ‘an unavoidable, urgent compulsory necessity,’ as Zhodiates offers the meaning. It is unavoidable. Nothing is going to stop the Shepherd from gathering His sheep to Himself. It is urgent. There can be no delay in getting about this task. Now, urgent may not seem so in our sight, who have been waiting these thousands of years for the consummation of the kingdom. But, were it not so long in coming, we should not be counted amongst the flock, would we? It is urgent, but it is urgent on God’s timetable. It shall not be so rushed as to be incompletely handled. No sheep left behind!
It is compulsory. This is non-optional. It is the bounden duty of the Shepherd to see to those other sheep as well as to those of this fold. There is a commandment from on high that these flocks be united as one, under this One Shepherd. All of His sheep must needs enter through the Door, that all of His sheep may be saved. For, He has not lost, nor shall He ever lose, a one of those the Father has entrusted into His care. No sheep left behind!
It is necessity. It is necessity in that particular sense that adheres to the philosophical. It cannot be otherwise. We can consider it inevitable that these flocks shall indeed be united. Isn’t that a marvelous thing to know as we consider the landscape of the Church in our day? It is inevitable that, in spite of the differences we have, in spite of doctrinal disagreements, we shall one day be united in Him. No, this unity is not so sloppy as to include every false claimant to membership amongst the sheep. But, it is greater than our limited understanding. However fervently we seek to uphold what we understand to be Truth, it is, in the end, our understanding, and all but bound to be incorrect in certain particulars. But, He shall lead us into all Truth. He shall teach us and we shall each one of us be shorn of our mistaken views, such that we are indeed one in faith, one in understanding, one in Truth. It shall be. It is necessity! It cannot be otherwise!
I am brought back to the one great responsibility of the sheep, and that is discernment. If we will but listen for the voice of our Shepherd, our Bridegroom, we shall be well, whatever may transpire. Listen, the fact that we have our disagreements on certain points of doctrine does not mean that one or the other of us isn’t hearing the Shepherd’s voice. It doesn’t mean that one or the other of us is false and has no business being in the fold. It means that we both suffer the effects of the fall, both see in part, understand in part. In the fundamentals, those matters that impinge on the issue of salvation, we must surely agree. But, so much of our doctrine is concerned with other matters, I will not say lesser, but other.
Our Shepherd has been raised from amongst us. He has made possible an intimate knowledge of Himself. This is to our benefit, as such intimate knowledge makes possible a greater degree of discernment. Who will we better discern from amongst the crowd of voices than that One who is our intimate? Which one of us could not readily discern the voice of our spouse from amongst every other voice in the crowd? It is no different between the sheep and the Shepherd! When Jesus says here that His sheep know Him and He knows them, He has shifted from that intuitive knowledge that He had spoken of in relaying the parable. He is now talking about the intimate knowledge that comes of having experienced one another.
Such knowledge of the Shepherd the sheep seek after. They give themselves to the pursuit of a deeper, more intimate knowledge of this One Who leads them. It is to their benefit to do so, for in knowing Him more intimately, discernment is increased, and the opportunity for misleading voices to gain a hearing is reduced.
Of even greater value, though, is the fact that He seeks such intimate knowledge of us! That is simply astounding: My God, my Lord and Savior, seeks to have intimate knowledge of me! Wow! I can look at the way my relationship with my wife has grown over the years, how we have gained a certain capacity for knowing how the other will hear things and feel about things. We have grown intimate, become increasingly familiar with the inner life of one another. No, we are hardly perfect in that, not by a long stretch. But, we are far better at it than we were at the start. So it is with my God. He wants that same developing relationship, that same increasing depth of recognition for one another. He wants to be privy to my deepest thoughts and feelings, not simply because He is able to perceive them whether I would have it or no, but because I willingly open myself up to Him as He willingly opens Himself up to me.
He seeks that intimacy with me, and as His love for me grows ever more real in my own thoughts, I seek that intimacy with Him. This must surely be the walk of every true believer. We seek to know Him as fully as we may, and we seek to be known by Him with equal fullness. Is it a mystery? Perhaps it is, after a fashion, for we are so fully known by Him that no least aspect of our being is left to discover. Yet, we continue to labor that we might be more wholly exposed to this One who sees our all in all. Why do we do it? Because we cannot have the intimacy we seek if we are holding back in ourselves. If we are not gladly open before Him, we cannot be open to Him.
Oh, but what assurance there is in knowing this: “All who are of the truth hear My voice” (Jn 18:37b). How marvelous that He did not choose to say that in reverse order. It is not because we hear His voice that we are of the truth. It is because we are of the truth that we hear His voice. It is because we are His sheep. We are already His. Do you see that? We are already His because He has called us. We answer because we are already His. We hear because He has already established us in the Truth. Marvelous! Absolutely marvelous, this God who has, against all common wisdom, cleaned this fish before He caught it! What other could do such a thing? There is no one! But, He foreknew. He predestined that I would be of the Truth and so hear His voice. Then He called, knowing I would hear. Then He justified by His death this one He had called. And yes, He has glorified this one He justified. Oh, indeed, Paul! Who can be against us when He is for us (Ro 8:29-31)?
How good it is to be counted amongst the sheep of His flock! To know His voice, to know His fellowship. There is no other peace, nor is there any need for another peace. For, He is our peace! He made both groups into one, destroyed the dividing wall, and made us one body, one flock (Eph 2:14-16). It was necessary.
The Father
Having come to this subject of the sheep and what constitutes a good shepherd, Jesus is put in mind of the Father. What we have in verse 17 is something like those moments of doxology one finds in Paul’s writings. So great are the things of God that as one contemplates them, the wonder of them often moves the student to such an expression of joy. The Father loves Me! You know, this whole matter of being the Good Shepherd? He loves Me because I have willingly taken upon Myself that office as He has commanded, and I am determined to see it through in just that way that He has required! He loves Me because I do as He commands, even when it means laying down My own life.
Listen! And understand this: I do lay down My life. It is the express purpose of all that I AM that I should lay down My life for you sheep. But, when that happens don’t be dismayed by it. It is not the victory of your enemies, but it is the victory of your Father in heaven. You see, they have not taken My life. I lay it down by My own choosing, and only by My own choosing. This authority, My Father has given Me.
However horrendous a death they have planned for Me, it comes only as I command it. It’s not even a question of allowing it. It will come when I say so. See, they have tried. Since the moment this ministry started, there have been those who tried to kill Me for declaring God’s Word in fullness. But, they have not done so have they? Why? Because it isn’t time yet. I decide when it’s time. And I decide how it shall come about. Beatings by the Romans? It would kill stronger men. But, it shall not kill Me, because it’s not time. That cross? A horrible, horrible instrument, and a most terrible way to die. Yes, they shall nail Me to it. Yes, the blood and the agony shall be quite real, believe Me. But, it shall not be the death of Me. My death shall come when I authorize it, not sooner and not later.
So it was that only when He had spoken, “it is finished,” did His death arrive. It arrived later than many might have expected. Surely, He would succumb to the preliminaries, so wounded was He. It arrived earlier than the experts at crucifixion expected. The whole point was to make the crucified one suffer for a lengthy time as a lesson for others. But, He timed His departure to His schedule. He has that authority.
He is also, He reminds His sheep, fully authorized to take it up again. Not only authorized, but empowered. Yes, He will die because to do so is to the benefit of the sheep. But, it shall not be a permanent matter, for the true and final death of the Shepherd can hardly be a good thing for the flock. No! He will take up life again of His own accord and again on His own schedule. The Shepherd once slain shall thereafter live forever! The seeming victory of the wolves shall once for all be turned to defeat. Indeed, all of this shall come about by the command of the Father! All is going according to plan.
How often I can become distraught over circumstances! How often I can look upon the situations through which I am passing and feel all but certain that the end must be upon me. There’s no way out. There’s no way we make it through this one. And yet, make it we do. And yet, we are not without provision for even a moment when all is over. We have been led, even through the valley of the shadow of death. We have seen those dangers pressing in from every side, but they have never reached us. Always, there has been something that happened in that last moment, and the threat of imminent doom recedes to be forgotten. This is the Shepherd I have in Christ! This is the point! This is Psalm 23 in action!
“I AM the Good Shepherd. I lay down My life for My sheep.” My Shepherd lives! He has faced the enemy of death and death lost. He lives and He lives forever. Death is no longer a threat for Him. It never was, but it has been fully vanquished in that moment that He returned to His heavenly throne. He lives, and because He lives I live. Because my life is so fully wrapped up in His life, I live in the security of knowing that my Shepherd is ever on duty. He never slumbers nor sleeps. He is ever on watch. He not only has my back, but He has scouted my way forward, has walked it before me to ensure that every last thing which might destroy me has been cleared away before I come.
Listen! My Shepherd knows me! He is intimately familiar with me. Should I wander, and I know that I shall because I am a sheep and that’s what sheep do, He knows me so well that He will know where I’ve gotten off to. He knows my habits, my weaknesses. I am all but certain to wander off, but He is more certain to know exactly where I wandered off to, and to come retrieve me. That is not, of course, some sort of license to screw up. But, it is security! It is security to know that in my weakness, I have the assurance of a strong and wise Shepherd. When I do something stupid, I have a wise One who will come to my rescue. It is no difficulty for Him to find me. He knows me. If I get lost, He knows what I’ll be off looking at, and He’ll come and lift me in His arms, to bring me back where I belong.
Whether, then, the danger is external or internal, I am secure in Him. Whatever may come, it shall not surprise Him. He is on watch, and He is all-seeing. Even when I wander, I have not surprised Him. He knew I was going astray, and He knew where I was heading. Why He allows this in me I may not ever fully understand, but I know He does, and I know He does so only for a time, then He brings me back to where I belong. Oh, what a marvelous Shepherd I follow! Oh, how infinitely tender, this One Who was raised from amongst the sheep. He knows me. He knows my weakness. And yet, He loves me, and He shall not suffer me to be lost to His flock. He has never lost a one, and never shall!
Be still, then, o soul. Know that this One has charge of you and be still! Know that however crazy things seem to get, He is in control of your care and so, your care is assured. Never have the righteous been found begging. He sees to their every need. They may not appear rich by the world’s standards, but then those standards do not constitute true riches. They are cared for in every need. I am cared for in every need. I may not have every want satisfied, but then, so much of what I want is counter to my well-being. My Shepherd knows the difference. He provides my needs. If my wants are not destructive, He may well provide for those, too. But, He is not going to give me whatever I ask for, whether for good or for ill. He is for good, and good alone. Praises be to my God and King, my Shepherd Who leads me to good pastures and still waters! Hallowed be His name! Amen.
