A couple of weeks ago, my wife Joni showed me a video clip of a Shepherd with his sheep. He was working hard to pull his sheep out of a crevice. There was a crevice in the land where they were and his sheep was wedged in there so he’s pulling and pulling and finally, he manages to pull him out. The sheep goes hopping away happy as a lark, he takes about 3 jumps, and then boom, right back in the crevice.

(279) Sheep gets stuck in trench, jumps back in – YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f97zwQS6I4o

I’d like to talk about Jesus the Good Shepherd and share what that has come mean for me.

In our world, our worth is defined by what we can do, or how attractive we are, or how much money we have. The greater our ability, the more attractive, the more wealthy, the more important we are, the greater our worth. At work we have annual, or maybe semi-annual reviews where we are rated on our performance. The better our performance, the more money we get, the more opportunity we have to move to a higher position of greater prestige. I understand this is necessary; but, it’s sending a continuous message that our worth is tied to our ability, what we can do.

It isn’t like that with God, or at least I don’t see that. God loves each of us infinitely. St. Augustine says it is helpful for us to meditate on the reality that Jesus would die for one person as readily as die for all people because His love is infinite. Different people have different gifts, and He gives some people more grace and more ability than others; but that’s all part of his plan to make a beautiful creation. St. Therese compares it to looking at a meadow where there are all kinds of grass and different flowers and some may be more beautiful than others; but the real beauty and wonder is the whole meadow.

But this worldly mindset about our worth can affect our relationship with God. We can think we need to be good in order to earn His love, in order to be worthwhile to Him. That isn’t God. He loves us because He loves us period. It’s not because we can achieve something wonderful for Him.

Now, we have to be careful here. We have to walk a fine line because there could be a temptation to complacency which is not good.

On the one hand, God loves us as we are right now with all our weaknesses and imperfections, and on the other hand that he really wants us to strive to be as good and perfect as we can be. I have struggled and struggled with this for a long time to put these together and I feel like the Lord gave me an answer the other day which I find helpful.

Ideally, what motivates us to strive to be good is that we want to please Him. We just want to please Him. We see how good He is, what He has done for us, how many times He has touched our lives in simple ways to tell us He’s thinking of us and in our gratitude we want to please Him and love Him and that is our striving.

This is different than striving to make ourselves pleasing to Him, to make ourselves good so that He will love us. That’s the world’s mentality. That was the mentality of the Pharisees. They wanted to make themselves pure so they would be entitled to God’s blessing. That’s not what God wants. He wants to bless us, and all He asks of us is that we keep turning to Him, trusting Him, trying our best to love Him like a little child. That’s how I see the good Shepherd, at least up here, I keep trying to make that more real down here.

It’s like St. Therese on her deathbed. She is in agony from tuberculosis and death is imminent. Several of the sisters are with her and one of them said something that annoyed her, and she responded with a little annoyance, and one of the other sisters called her on it. Now, most of us would probably respond in 1 of 2 ways – we’d either be really annoyed – can you give me a break; or we’d be scared knowing we’re about to die and we messed up like that; but not Therese. Her response was: O how wonderful that I will go to God in need of His mercy. Talk about child-like trust.

We have to realize that Jesus wants to pour Himself out for us. He said, I am and the good Shepherd, and I will lay down my life for the sheep. That’s why He came.

A little while ago my son Eric came to me and asked why didn’t God just give all of us a massive infusion of grace like our Blessed Mother so we could all be perfect? He could have done that. And I think the answer is because if we were all perfect, He wouldn’t have had to die for us. Love wants to prove itself.

So, 3 quick take-aways. Things that we can do to grow in this child-like trust.

1. Practice Praise and Thanksgiving. As St. Therese said, what most draws down graces from our dear Lord is gratitude, for if we thank Him for a gift, he is touched and hastens to give us ten more, and if we thank him again with the same sincerity, what an incalculable multiplication of graces! I have experienced this: try it and you will see. My gratitude for all that he gives me is boundless, and I prove this to him in a thousand ways.
2. Live in Jesus. Speak with Him frequently throughout the day. Do not let yourself be formed by the world; be formed by the Word of God. Soak yourself in scripture.
3. Be resolved to always follow Him. Be like good sheep who always follow their Shepherd. We may mess up at times but determine that He is your life and you’re going to follow Him.