Bewildered Lamb

While filling the house with candles and lights, the black cloud descended again. It’s the kind of dark that external light doesn’t dissipate. I tried. But in the end, I knew I just had to ride it out. I lit the Advent candles. I normally read scripture with the wreath, but for some reason, I felt compelled to find a daily devotion. And this was the one that popped up first:

“Do you know what it’s like to lose your bearings and be hopelessly adrift in a sea of uncertainty? To be alone, lost, and disoriented without a sense of direction is one of the worst fears we can encounter.” Ok, you have my attention. It went into the parable of the lost sheep.

Now, I’ve always thought that that parable was pretty straightforward: Jesus loves all of us sheep, and he’ll go to any length to gather each and every one of us in. It’s all about the shepherd. But about that sheep that got lost? “Sheep by nature are very social creatures. An isolated sheep can quickly become bewildered, disoriented, and even neurotic. Easy prey for wolves and lions! The shepherd’s grief and anxiety is turned to joy when he finds the lost sheep and restores it to the fold.”

Since I grew up Christian, I never considered myself the lost sheep, and I never considered the condition the sheep was in. Alone, scared, disoriented, in danger. Maybe even neurotic. A sheep cannot save itself. It cannot find its own way back. It has to rely on its shepherd to find it. It can hide or it can bleat out, but mostly, it can only wait to be saved.

I can hide and wallow or I can cry out for help. But I can’t always save myself or fix the present circumstances. Sometimes I just have to wait my shepherd.