Sheep Lesson #3: Guided by Voice

We’ve been trying to train our lambs to walk with the harness. Ugh! They hate it so much it makes me almost hate it too! But if we ever want to show our lambs (not likely, but there is the possibility) we need to learn how to have them walk with a harness.

So what do these gentle, sweet lambs to when we put the harness on them? They throw themselves face first onto the hay and dig their hooves into the dirt. Oh so cooperative, eh?

What happens when I don’t put the harness on them?

Both Rachel and Leah will follow the sound of my voice. That’s right, we haven’t had them a week and yet they know my voice and Kenzie’s voice. They will follow us from their pen across a full thirty feet of open land and through a small gate into their pasture.

Frolicking in green pastures.

They would much rather be led by voice than by harness. “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.” ~ Psalm 32:9

Does it remind you of something?

It sure reminds me of something:

(from John 10)

2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

…

14“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”

Think about that for a moment. Jesus said that just as the Father knows Him and He knows the Father, this is how we will know Him. That’s an amazing intimacy we’ve been called into! He wants us to recognize and follow the sound of His voice. He wants that even more than we want it.

Sheep don’t need a harness. They’ll follow the sound of the shepherd’s voice.

I no longer feel insulted when I’m called a sheep.