A friend was out in the hills of Mexico, visiting with a shepherd.  The shepherd’s flock was grazing quietly around them as they visited.

Suddenly, some unexpected noise startled the sheep and they began to flee from the imagined threat.  They tore off down the hill and along the valley.  My friend looked at the shepherd, expecting him to take some urgent measure to stop the stampede.  Instead, the shepherd opened his lunch, sat down on a rock and began to eat.

My friend watched the sheep run further and further away and could not understand the calm attitude of the shepherd.  He watched as the sheep became smaller and smaller in the distance, but he saw that they were slowing down.  Finally, it seemed that they had stopped and started to mill around, not knowing what to do next.

Now the shepherd put away his lunch, stood on top of the rock and began to call the sheep.  They turned toward the familiar voice of their shepherd and slowly began to walk back.  After awhile they were all back on the hillside, calmly grazing near their shepherd once again.

“You see,” the shepherd told my friend, “if I had begun to yell and run after them waving my rod, they would have been even more frightened.  And they would have been scared of me.  I knew that when they were quiet enough to hear my voice they would respond to my call.”

In the gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 14, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”

We have loved ones who are running away from the good shepherd and sometimes we wonder why He doesn’t do something more powerful and dramatic to call them back.  Perhaps he does and they misunderstand what is happening.  We don’t have any guarantee that they will turn around.  But we can trust that there will be a time, perhaps many times, while the other noises around them are quiet for a moment, when the good shepherd will call them.  They can choose to ignore that call, but they will know that it is His voice.