Our Unfixable Sheepness

Isn’t it funny how you can look back at almost every stage of your life and come to the same conclusion: we were so clueless. Funny thing is we never felt that way at the time. At the time, we felt so together.

I vividly remember a particularly sunny day, standing under coconut palms in the backyard of our home in Manila. I was four or five at the time. My mother and her friends were having a spirited discussion as to when “the age of accountability” for a child begins. They finally agreed that at approximately the age of seven a child would be mature enough to bear the responsibility before God for their actions. I listened intently and then I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. As far as the adults were concerned, I would get a free pass for at least one more year!

Clever, maybe, but so clueless!

I think back on the way I thought and the decisions I made at 15, 25, 35, and 45 years old. Every ten years or so, I take out the picture books and look over the old photographs, laugh at the hairstyles, the clothes we thought were so cool, and remember my life and think, “Oh, how little I understood. But now, I know so much more!”

The photos jog my memory. There I am: the idealistic ’70s teenager, barefooted, with patched bell bottoms and a paisley shirt. Then look at me: a young wife in a flower-print cotton Laura Ashley dress with ballet flats. And now, look again: these are the tired mommy years—ponytail, sweatshirt, and sneakers (mothering a busy two-year-old who one friend said belonged in a circus). Then the next phase: the busy pastor’s wife with an official title, a growing women’s ministry, notebook and study Bible in tow.

I can look back longer than I’d like to admit. And yet, with each season I see there were so many things I would have done differently. I would rewind the tape, slow down, not sweat the small stuff, and as Greg had often reminded me, “Be here now.”

So finally, this fact has dawned on me: during every phase of my life, regardless of how together I may have thought I was, I wasn’t.

This is the ongoing problem of my cluelessness: I always think I am just getting over it, but I am not! It is best for me to keep this is mind when I think I have it together. This fact won’t change. I admit I am clueless about many things, I’m just older.

That is certainly why, when Jesus tells us in John 10 that He is our Good Shepherd and we are His sheep, it isn’t a compliment. He didn’t call us His horses or His chickens. Horses and chickens, if they escape their stalls or fly the coop, will generally adapt and manage just fine in the wild.

I heard about some parrots in Brooklyn that were originally from Argentina. They are thought to be long-ago escapees from a container at John F. Kennedy International Airport. They have adapted and now are accomplished city dwellers with nests as big as condos!

Not so with sheep. They will most likely become leg of lamb for some predator. Prone to wander and get into trouble, they need a shepherd. And so do you and I. How grateful I am for His faithful guidance and rescue through each phase of my life. Call me clueless or call me a sheep, either suits my case, our case, just fine. My Good Shepherd knew that about me long before I did, and has guided me every step of the way.

It is my job to humbly confess my weakness, and stay close by my Shepherd. If we are listening and heeding His voice, day by day, moment by moment, we can trust Him to give us a heads-up before we make another clueless mistake.

Cathe Laurie is the wife of Greg Laurie. She is the founder and director of the women’s ministry at Harvest Christian Fellowship and teaches in the Women’s Bible Fellowship at Harvest. This article is reprinted by permission from Harvest Ministries with Greg Laurie, PO Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514.