Leaving the 99
Daylight is quickly fading as I check my flock one last time. I count my sheep, 1 is missing. JoAnn, my almost 19-year-old sheep is nowhere to be found. Because of her advanced age (sheep usually live between 10–12 years) JoAnn can’t hear or see well so is oftentimes separated from her flock.
I scan the pastures and can’t find her. My heart races as I pick up my pace and call her name. As if she could hear me. I leave the 99, the flock, her flock, to find the 1. Other sheep call back to me as I call JoAnn.
I have tried to keep JoAnn in the safety of a barn but she won’t be separated from her flock, she won’t eat and paces until I let her back out to the pastures, to the sheep she has lived with all her days.
She doesn’t understand or care about the danger of outside living: getting lost, falling, predators. Yes, I have livestock guards to protect my flock but JoAnn — an independent spirit — does not need their help. She routinely distances herself from the guardians and the safety of the flock. She distances herself from me, her shepherdess.
I say a quick pray to find JoAnn. I know she’s out there somewhere. Will I find her alive?
Over the final hill in our rolling pastures I see a familiar wooly head and a distinct baa as if she sees some shadowy form of her shepherdess. “JoAnn, you scared me to death”. As if she cared or knew I was concerned about her.
I try to usher her from behind up into the top pastures and she runs zig zag as if I am trying to catch her to do her harm. In almost 19 years I have never harmed her but still she thinks I may. Her natural instinct to flee runs deep. I then step in front of her and she warily follows my shadowy figure back to safety. To the 99.
She’s safe for this night. Despite her penchant to wander and leave the safety of the flock, the safety of her shepherd.
I have been JoAnn many times over my life, not trusting My Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, even though He has proven Himself to be more than trustworthy over and over again.
My life’s path is filled with attempts at doing things my way — zig zags and twists and bad choices. During those times I distance myself from those who love me. I distance myself from My Shepherd. I know better than He does.
My Shepherd’s attempts at keeping me safe and on the best path is often seen by me as controlling or Him not knowing what is best for me. How foolish I am in those willful moments. How utterly foolish of me to think My Shepherd does not want or know what’s best for me.
And so He continually leaves the 99 to find me on some distant hill in a far pasture I am not supposed to be in. He calls and though I hear, I don’t always listen. My natural, stubborn instinct to flee His will runs deep.
Still, He never quits looking. He never stops calling me to join the safety of the flock, the safety of His strong arms that lift me up and cradle me when I am scared or tired or feel alone.
He leaves the 99 to find me, the 1 He loves so much He can’t leave alone until I finally find my way home to Him. My Good Shepherd.
“What man of you, having one hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?” Luke 15: 4
Jackie Deems copyright 2020