Shepherd skills

Sunday April 26^th, Psalm 23: The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. A shepherd is one who watches out for the sheep. The sheep, and that would be you and I, are the ones who tend to wander. We wander out of stupidity, we wander out of curiosity, we wander out of willfulness, and sometimes we wander just for the hell of it to see what will happen.  In this psalm of comfort we hear that even when we wander, we don’t wander alone, the Lord is watching out for us. In that we can put our hope and faith and find comfort. Even when we wander off, the good shepherd is there to bring us back into the community, back into the fold. No matter where we go in life, no matter how far we wander, no matter how much we might try to deny the shepherds existence, the good shepherd is there, always watching out for us and working us back into the fold. That is what grace looks like in action. The reason we are in the fold, and/or brought back to the fold is so the Shepherd can move us onto new pastures.  It is the new pastures in life that help us grow.  This is called mission because in these new pastures we meet new people who we help grow, and in the process find ourselves growing even more because of our interaction with them.  The purpose of Grace is mission and the message of mission is Grace.  Of this the world, and our ever hungry souls, have great need.