My Sheep Hear My Voice

My sheep hear my voice. The voice of a stranger, they will not follow.  The Lord said this.  Seems pretty straight forward to me.  Probably the first ah-ha I got from it was realizing that he didn't say my sheep won't hear a stranger's voice. They will.  But hearing is not the same a following.  His sheep recognize whose voice to follow.

The third ah-ha came last night.  From a comment I made on a FB thread that seemed to set off - or to use a term popularized in the past week - triggered a huge discussion.  

Want to know my triggering comment?

"I am only a sheep in my relationship to the Lord."

And this is the story of my second ah-ha connected to that verse:

Ironically, yesterday's post talked about my prayer closet.  It's where I go to hear His voice, ask questions and get my thinking and believing sorted out.  Well, here's a little secret.  The very first question I asked, when I started my journey out of the cesspool that had masqueraded as my walk with God was:

"Why do I get so upset whenever I hear people being referred to as sheep?"

His answer: "Because people are only sheep in in their relationship to me."

And I couldn't believe it.

My heart held a more entrenched belief.  Something like: "stupid sheep, (which apparently I am - based on biblical analogy and shepherd interpretation) are unable to accurately hear and unwilling to follow, the voice of God."

Where had that belief come from?  It was a direct contradiction to the word of God and yet I believed it whole-heart-idly, in spite of the fact that doing so brought me so much confusion and misery.  My traditional belief had nullified God's word on the subject. (Mark 7:13) 

I climbed out of my closet and went to my trusty Strong's Exhaustive Concordance to search for verses that referred to people as sheep.  And much to my surprise, I had heard God accurately.  Humans are overwhelmingly (I would say always, but I may have missed a verse or 2 in my study) only ever referred to as sheep in relationship to Him. 

Last night's FB conversation made evident that this is not a popular view.  

Here we are, ALL having been given a ministry.  ALL believers in Christ are commissioned to declare a single message, "You have been reconciled to God!" But the FB comments sparked by saying I am only a sheep in relationship to God, felt like they came from a determination to beat this unruly sheep so she would know her rightful place as a lesser than species under the greater thans who hold the golden 'shepherd' ticket.    

This morning I was reading the comments made overnight and my eyes began to leak.  Weird sensation, to experience a flow of tears with no emotions connected. Only the realization that while our nation is fighting for its life, and the church is hemorrhaging under accusations of irrelevancy, the 'shepherds' are bickering over who's king of the mountain.  Oh God, help us!  

There's a 4th ah-ha but that will be another blog.