One curious thing about sheep is that they cannot be driven. Try to drive them and they will scatter in all different directions. You can, however, lead them just about anywhere. Get a bucket of feed and the whole herd will follow you most of the time. There are times though when nothing seems to work. A stubborn sheep will throw up its head and just take off, always in the direction that you don’t want it to go!!

One day on the farm, a group of “teenage” sheep got out of the pen. These were young lambs that were only about half grown. With help from the boys, my husband managed to get them all back in the pen…except one. That one went thru the neighbor’s fence and headed over the hill. He didn’t stop to look around. He kept his head up and kept on moving. In my mind, I imagine he was smiling and singing, “Free at Last”!

My husband was very frustrated. He tries so hard to take good care of his sheep. And a lamb, especially a small one like that, is in real danger from predators when it leaves the safety of the farm, the herd and the guard dogs. So, my husband decided to give the lamb a few minutes to calm down. Then, he planned to go look for it. He waited a little while and began his search. He looked and looked. He drove up the road and walked the fields. In the end, he could not find the lamb and it was getting dark. My husband knew that the lamb probably would not survive the night on its own. Brokenhearted, he returned to the house. He had tried his best to find the lamb. But, there was nothing more that he could do.

About a week later, a neighbor stopped by the house. We had long since given up on ever finding the missing lamb. But, the neighbor said a lamb had been staying in the yard of his mother’s old home place, which had not been lived in for years. The neighbor wondered if it might be our lamb since we were the only ones around there close who had sheep. My husband went the about two miles up the road to see and sure enough it was our missing “teenager”!

That stubborn little lamb had been gone and all alone for about a week. He had left the safety of his home and had gone out to explore the world on his own. It was a miracle that he had survived that long. And it was only by God’s protection, mercy and grace that he was able to return safely home.

And so the question is – how safe are we when we walk willfully into the darkness to follow after worldly pleasures and refuse to come home to the Lord?

Matthew 18: 12-14 (KJV)

12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.

14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.