THE PROMISE FROM THE SHEPHERD

For thus says the Lord God, "Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest," declares the Lord God. "I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment."
(Ezekiel 34: 11-16)

We have seen many passages where the writer compares the Lord to a shepherd. To a pastoral culture, it was a ready and familiar comparison. In this passage from Ezekiel, we find that the Lord Himself chooses this comparison. From the days of the offerings of Cain and Abel to now, the shepherd and the flock have been a favored image to our God. Not that other activites have been disrespected. It is just that something about that work of a shepherd greatly touches the heart of God.

Here we find all the promises of good care from the Shepherd, that He will lead His flock to good pastures. But there is more than that. The Lord God promises that He will seek out His scattered sheep, no matter the circimstances. I particularly like the mention that He will seek the lost even when scattered on cloudy and gloomy days.

Here is the purpose of Christmas from God's side of the event: He wants to seek us out, to find us wherever we have wandered, no matter what darkness and gloom our scattering behavior has taken us into. At just those points when we are wailing that we have been forsaken, the Lord is heading toward us, intent on bringing us back to safety and to plenty.

If God is coming after us, why then do our times of trials seem to go on so long? James reminded us that trials serve to build our endurance, and that's "nice". But if God seeks us, why does it "take so long"?

We are sheep. Near-sighted, easily alarmed, stubborn creatures. If we wander off, we seem certain we can find our own way. I wonder ... when we find ourselves in barren territory or tangled in briars, do we stop moving and wait for the shepherd? Or do we try to push on, sure we can find our way back to the safe pastures on our own, even though we cannot see the bluffs that drop away on one side or the turbulent water that can drown us on another. Perhaps it is our own tendency to try and keep moving that stretches out the time it takes the Lord to reach us.

Until we are ready to be found, can we be found, even when the seeker is the Lord God Himself?

Very little children love the game of peek-a-boo. For a brief time as they grow, they place an amazing belief in the power of seeing: they believe that if they cannot see you, you aren't there; if they cannot see you, you cannot see them. As adults, we play along with this, because the simple delight of the child when he or she sees the face of the adult delights us in turn.

Sometimes we treat God that way: if we don't look at Him, He won't see us and we won't see Him. We can laugh with delight when we choose to turn to Him.

But we are stubborn. And sometimes we push on by ourselves.

Yet, all the while, the Divine Shepherd is seeking us. Not to punish us, but rather to rescue us and bring us back to all the good things we need for life. He finds the lost, the broken, and the sick, and will restore them.

To me, I think that is another reason for us to not attack those who hate believers and would destroy those who follow the Lord: since God seeks those who are lost and scattered, do we know who they are? When we look around us, and see other people scrambling, is our spiritual eyesight good enough to know whether it is a lost sheep or a mountain lion? Better if we leave that to the Shepherd.

Of course, there is the warning in the end of the passage: that the Lord will destroy the fat and sassy who linger in the midst of the flock.

It is interesting to me to realize that the Lord has expectations of us. Not that we simply follow Him and trust Him. He wants to provide us with everything we need for a healthy, secure life, but He has no interest in seeing us become so glutted on that life that we waddle along weighed down with fat.

On every side, we are reminded that our God is pro-active. He watches over us, protects us, provides for us. He seeks us, even when we are lost in our own wandering. He does not stop. (Humorous side thought: in the film The Terminator, Reese tells Sarah Connor that the Terminator will not stop in his quest for her. The word "terminator" led my mind to "Alpha and Omega" - "omega" being the last letter of the Greek alphabit, the end, the termination. Our God is like the Terminator, hunting and seeking. The big difference, the important difference, is that the Lord does not want to destroy us, but rather return us to the safety of the well-tended flock.)

The Lord will always seek us, whether we are looking at Him or not.