During the time when I lived in the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, I saw
many flocks of sheep in the desert area where we were building a
175-mile pipeline. On several occasions, I had to fly to our field
office in the interior of the Omani desert in the small Cessna airplane
that we had. One time, as we were coming into to land, there was a young
shepherdess girl with about 25 or 30 sheep just at the end of the
landing strip. The noise of the airplane and the sudden appearance of it
from the sky scared the sheep, and they scattered in every direction.
Later, we saw that she had called them, and they were all back together
again. They had recognized her calming voice, and obviously they had
listened to it. More than likely, she was the only human being with whom
the sheep were familiar, and quite possibly, she was the only person who
could bring them back together again. A shepherd cares for his or her
sheep.
It is a known fact that the raising of sheep was and still
is a very important business in the Middle East. It was so in Bible
times, and the Bible is full of stories about sheep, with literally
hundreds of references to sheep and the keeping of sheep. As a matter of
fact, according to Sheep101:
Sheep are mentioned in the Bible
more than 500 times, more than any other animal. The prominence of sheep
in the Bible grows out of two realities. Sheep were important to the
nomads and agricultural life of the Hebrews and similar peoples.
Secondly, sheep are used throughout the Bible to symbolically refer to
God's people.
Many sheep are still being raised in the Middle
East. We were in Jordan some years ago, and along the way from Petra to
Amman, we saw many flocks of sheep looking for food in the desert, all
accompanied by a shepherd.
In John chapter 10, Jesus makes
several references to Himself being the Good Shepherd. The people could
understand and relate to these sayings of Jesus, because keeping sheep
was big business at that time. But these were the verses which really
caught my eye:
John 10:27-28: "My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they
shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
(NKJV)
These words of Scripture tell us that Jesus is -- or can
be -- our Shepherd, if only we let Him. When people have wandered away,
when we are scattered by the events around us, when we are distraught
about one thing or another, let us just relax and listen to the
Shepherd's voice.
Prayer: Our Father in heaven, we pray for all
people who have wandered away from the faith, and who are seeking for
peace in their hearts. We pray that they will listen to the Shepherd's
voice. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Joel Jongkind
Meaford, Ontario, Canada
