The Shepherd

I was listening to the daily message of John McDonald http://www.walkintheword.com/broadcast.aspx

It talked about being broken, and why we must be broken once in a while. He gave the analogy of a shepherd who has a lamb that is so rebellious that it wont stay in the green pastures. it keeps running away to danger. He keeps chasing it down and bringing it back and he knows that if it continues its rebellion it may be lost forever. So he takes the lamb on his lap and breaks one of its legs. I never knew this.

Sometimes we must be broken too, of pride, and self-reliance, stubborness, defiance.

He does this through breaking relationships that aren't healthy, through the loss of health, jobs, the loss of possessions, etc. And while it isn't comfortable, it makes us totally dependant on Him. And He is not correcting or punishing us for no reason. It is to perfect us, making us totally reliant on Him. We really can't "do it all". But He can, and will. We may not like the way He does it, but that is the part of being broken. He can and will do what is profitable for us. It is His plan, a perfect answer to all that we are going to be, not what we were.

I know that when I got sick, and couldn't get down on my knees physically, I certainly did spiritually. because when I was brought down to the lowest place in my life, there was no place to look but up.