Heart Tracks - The Bummer Lamb

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." John 10:27

Sheila Walsh tells the story of a Scottish shepherd she knew as a child. It would happen at times that for some reason, the mother sheep would reject a lamb, pushing it away, with the end result being the lamb could die. In these cases, the shepherd would take these lambs and bring them into his home, feeding them from a bottle, warming them at his fire, and holding them to his chest so that they could hear his heart. She said these lambs were called "bummer lambs." She said that the result of his care for these bummer lambs was that each morning, when he would go to the fold and call the sheep to himself, the first to respond were those who had been his "bummer lambs." They, more than any of them, knew his voice. Walsh said that it was her heart's desire that she would never cease to be one of His bummer lambs.....someone who knew His voice, and the sound of His heart.

This fallen world is expert at making so many feel like, to be, bummer lambs. Rejected, forgotten, pushed aside and away. The sure end of it all is death.....unless we come to the Shepherd who will so lovingly take us into the "home" that is His heart. Who will nurture us, care for us, and raise us up. A Shepherd who will, through His intimacy with us, give us life, healing, and hope. A hope that hears His voice in the midst of the darkest night, and the most dangerous places. A hope that holds us close to His heart. A hope that brings the beat of our hearts into communion with the beat of His. The coldness, the fallenness of this world, makes bummer lambs of us all, yet He would turn the evil intent of the enemy through this world to our good. He would make us bummer lambs filled with His Life and Light. He would have us to know His voice. He would have us to be free and whole.

It may be that this past year has left you feeling very much like a bummer lamb. You've known rejection, abandonment, despair. You may feel forgotten, discarded, isolated. Before you stands the Shepherd of your soul, of all of our souls. He calls you to Himself, to His heart and His voice. All you need do, all any of us need do, is to come. Come in our brokenness, our need, our pain, and He will give us life. He will give you life. What the enemy and world mean to be your end as a bummer lamb, can be in reality the beginning of real life. A bummer lamb in Christ. One who knows His voice, hears it, and comes to Him. Now, and forevermore.

Blessings,
Pastor O