Listen

“I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and they know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. I give up my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that don’t belong to this sheep pen. I must lead them too. They will listen to my voice and there will be one flock, with one shepherd.”

John 10:14-16

Think

In his memoir, The Shepherd’s Life, James Rebanks tells of rescuing a flock of sheep from a winter storm. Wind is drifting the snow, and the sheep are in danger of being completely buried. As he calls to them, one of his older ewes recognizes his voice in the wind and follows him: “I trudge my way through the growing drifts,” he writes. “The best ewe follows me… she knows they are being led away from danger.”

I didn’t realize that sheep could recognize their shepherd’s voice so well. The “best ewe” recognizes the shepherd’s voice because she has spent her life following him. When the shepherd calls to her during a storm, she knows to follow.

Like her, when we spend our lives following our Good Shepherd, we’ll know how to recognize Jesus’ voice, even when the storms of life blow around us.

Jane Claspy Nesmith

Pray

Merciful God, keep me close by you so that I learn the sound of your voice and come to trust it as it calls me forth from the storms of life. Amen.

Go

Go, knowing that the good shepherd is with you

In grassy meadows,

Beside restful waters,

Through shadowy dark valleys.

Go, knowing that the good shepherd, Jesus Christ,

Claims you as his own.