So I know that I was supposed to update every Friday, and it has been like a month now and there have been some updates lacking… like all of them, and while I made this update in time for Friday, it never got posted. I must admit it is hard to come up with something to write about, while I have many ideas not all of them translate to a good enough bulletin. So let us see what we can come up with as an update.
Now that I am a shepherd of actual sheep, and of my children (to raise them up in the way that they should go), I have gotten to thinking about many of the things that I grew up hearing about animals and the like. Things like farm animals’ smell, and they are so messy, or stories from church that deal with sheep. While some of these things may be true, some are misrepresented or exaggerated. Do my animals smell… of course, they are animals, and they have a scent, but it is not strong unless you are going up to them and going all in for that “what do you smell like?” sensation? Are they messy, sure, they are animals and they are not trying to impress anyone, so they do their business anywhere and are completely okay with that. However, sacrificing truth for the sake of a good story trying to make a point is not acceptable. Have you ever heard your pastor talk about how a good shepherd will sometimes come across a rather stubborn or willful sheep that likes to leave the flock? In order to correct this situation they will find the sheep, and break one of its legs, then they will carry the sheep around everywhere until it heals, once it the sheep is healed, seeing how kind its master was for carrying it, and being there while it healed, would follow it around and love him forever? How nice of the shepherd, how loving they are in carrying around the wounded animal until it healed? That is real love, the sacrifice and strain on the shepherd’s back to nurse the little sheep back to health. Well, the connection is then made that God will do this to us when we are willful, that sometimes He has to break us, then get us to lean on Him until we are better, then we will love Him.
Wait a minute… WHAT DID THAT SHEPHERD DO?!?!?! Ya, you read it right, he BROKE his sheep’s leg. That seems so loving to me. However, you might say, Michael, you do not understand it was an act of love so that the sheep does not do it again. Clearly, the person who came up with this story never had sheep. First off they weigh HUNDREDS of pounds, attempting to carry one around with a broken leg, would break your spine into roughly 84 million dust fragments. Secondly, these “dumb” animals are not going to understand why out of nowhere they are in excruciating pain. They WILL fear you. Think back to the actual stories we have in the bible about the good shepherds, like David, or even Christ himself. David would go out to save his animals from the mouths of lions and tigers and bears… no, no, no, I am not going to say “oh my”, hmm… or maybe I am, but just to say it to let you know that I am not going to say it. I did not recall hearing him breaking any legs. Christ talks about going out to find the lost one, but again no mention of dismemberment. Not to mention that breaking an animals leg especially in that time would probably ruin that whole without spot or blemish thing, and animals don’t deal the same with those kind of things as we do with modern medicine. As I understand it, if certain animals get broken limbs they are no good EVER again. I have not researched it, so I MAY be guilty of what I am ranting about in this article, but people shoot horses if their leg’s get broken, do they not?
This is not to say that God does not correct us when we do wrong, we are in fact His children, if you are truly saved. Scripture tells us that those He loves He chastens. Scripture says that He is Father in Heaven, who is perfect, and parents should correct their children, sometimes with physical discipline, but WHERE do you find in scripture the advocating breaking your children’s limbs?
So remember, my brothers and sisters, when you hear a message there is nothing wrong with accepting it, but then go to the scriptures to see if it is true. Next week we will be starting profiles for out sheep, but not like dating profiles, or profiling which is against the law, but like… talking about our sheep and stuff, like prices and what not. Starting off the list will be Eli our first Ram, and how if the above mentioned story were true, I would have broken at least one of his legs, and my own spine.