Messy Sheep

God is in control little sheep.  Something I tend to forget.  Something many of us tend to forget. 

There are so many times when we go through life and make decisions and stress out and worry and fight what is happening.  Sometimes we need to be reminded that God is in control.  He is in control of our lives, our well-being, our future, everything.  There are too many things in life that are completely out of our control.  This is a hard concept for those of us that like everything to be controlled.  We tend to take charge and want to make things happen a certain way in order to ensure a certain outcome.  However, what happens when that outcome does not happen?  The opposite happens?  Chaos is what happens.  The sheep are lost.  We cannot control everything for we are not in the driver's seat.  Not always anyways.  Many times we think we are and we are not. 

Take Moses and the Israelites for example.  They travel to the promise land and Moses sends some men in to explore the land of Canaan.  When they return they men tell stories of how the people there are much bigger, stronger, and more powerful than they.  They discourage the tribe from entering into the land the Lord has promised because they fear they will die.  While Joshua and Caleb plead that the land is good and God will protect them, they do not listen and they rebel.  Because they did not trust that the Lord had a plan and was in control, they were forced to travel the desert for 40 years (a year for each day they explored the land) until each person had died.  Their lack of faith kept them from ever seeing the land the Lord had promised to them. (Numbers 13-14)

We face giants of many kinds in life.  We have to trust that God has a plan and He will be faithful to us.  He will never abandon us.  A shepherd never abandons his flock.  We have to choose to walk into the light and stay faithful to Him.  We have to make the commitment to follow Him.  There is always more than what we see.  There is always a lesson to be learned.  By turning away we tend to drift through life and do what feels good at the time.  What happens when we fall away?  We start partying, drinking, slacking off, making wrong decisions, filling our lives with regret.  We need to be patient and committed to Christ to see what His plan is.  To follow our shepherd.

We need God's grace on a day-to-day basis.  Satan works in our lives to make us feel that we are not worthy enough. We are not good enough to go to church, or to pray, or that we are not worthy of His forgiveness.  The truth is, we are worthy to ask God for things such as forgiveness.  There is no perfect Christian.  That is a facade.  The "perfect Christian" you see going to church on Sunday with their "perfect family" and their "perfect lifestyle" is a hypocrite.  That person does not exist.  Those hypocrites are discouraging to others.  Christians suffer and hurt just as much as the next person.  Sometimes even more.  Paul did.  He suffered and went through trials, but he always put God first and knew that God was in control.  We are all messy sheep and God is our shepherd that keeps us clean.  That's what makes us so special.

When things happen to us and/or other people, we need to pray and examine our hearts and see where we are at.  We need to get involved and be doers of the word and not just hearers.  We are living testaments and the only Jesus some people will ever see. 

God commands us in John 13:34, "A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so that you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." 

God loves us in many ways, UNCONDITIONALLY (no matter what we do He will never stop loving us), SACRIFICALLY (He laid down His life to save us from sin, death, and the power of the devil), as a SERVANT (Jesus loved his disciples so much He washed their feet...including Judas who would betray Him), FORGIVING (He always forgives, even when we don't deserve it). 

Christians should be known by their sincere love for one another, just as Christ sincerely loves us.

Pray hard and diligently.  Pray first for God's will.  Secondly, keep you're prayers Christ centered.  And finally, bring God glory.  For these are the kinds of prayers He will answer.

God has begun a work in all of us and we need to allow Him to complete it.  He is a master artist and we are a beautiful canvas.  Let him complete his master piece for all the world to see and rejoice in!

Be steadfast and proud to be a messy sheep!