I Have Come to Realize ...

... that our lives consist entirely of choices.  We spend each waking minute, whether at work, at play, study, or rest, deciding whether we’ll follow God’s will for us or not.  Each and every one of these moments are intersections, forks in the road of life.

As an adult, I can look back down the road which I've traveled and see how these countless little decisions, from the time I could reason until the present day, for right or for wrong, have formed me into the person I've become.  Habits, good and bad, virtues, vices.  I try to keep ever in mind that at the end of the road, it's those countless little decisions I've made throughout life, that have mapped and paved my way to my eternal destiny.

So sure, we take the wrong path sometimes, but do we learn from it?  Do we humble ourselves by getting up and begging forgiveness -- of both God and ourselves -- then take hold of His hand and start again?  If so, we’ve gained a greater understanding of ourselves and a greater perspective on God.  If not, we continue on our dark and winding path away from Him.

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Lost Sheep

A friend of mine used to tend sheep on his parent's farm as a boy.  He explained to me once some of their curious habits, such as never drinking from running water, and always following the sheep directly in front of them.  Somehow our discussion turned to the image of the shepherd from Matthew and Luke's gospels -- the shepherd who leaves the flock of 99 sheep to find the one that strayed.

He asked if I'd ever noticed that in some of the paintings of Jesus as the shepherd, the lamb hoisted upon His shoulders has a bandage around one leg.  He told me that in some cases, a young lamb will habitually stray -- no matter how many times the shepherd brings it back to the flock, it soon runs off again.  And it leads others astray as well.

So the shepherd breaks the leg of the wandering lamb.

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