“He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.”
Psalm 23
This was no cute or cuddly sheep. The scraggly-looking beast that blocked the path in front of us was not pleased to have guests on his mountain. Two things got my attention at the moment—the sheer size of the animal, and the defiant look in its eyes that said, “I will not be moved.”
And well, there were those enormous horns.
It was a bighorn sheep. I had encountered it on the Highline trail in Glacier National Park in Montana one summer.
Let me clarify that. By encountering it, I mean that I was flummoxed by it. The bighorn sheep would not let me or the other hikers proceed. And on the Highline trail, there’s no way to get off the path. Well, that is to say, get off the trail and live. Above the tree line and carved into the side of the mountain, the terrain is straight up and straight down.
There it stood, blocking our path. The trail belonged to him. A standoff and a staredown commenced.
According to Phillip Keller’s book, The 23rd Psalm According to a Shepherd, sheep can be stubborn and “notorious creatures of habit.” Without a shepherd, and left to themselves, “they will follow the same trails until they become ruts, graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes, pollute their own ground until it is corrupt.”
None of this is in the herd’s best interest. Sheep can ruin the land that they live on.
The good shepherd knows that sheep need to be kept on the move. “That is to say, they dare not be left on the same ground too long.” Like farmers who set up a rotation to work some fields and leave others to fallow, a capable shepherd will keep sheep moving to keep both the land and the livestock healthy.
According to the 23rd Psalm, God will lead us in right paths for his name’s sake. God’s reputation is at stake in the handling of His sheep and His land. If either fails, God will get a bad reputation. To guard against getting a bad rap, God will lead His sheep to fresh pastures where they can grow and thrive.
But like sheep, we can be stubborn and obstinate. We like to be in control and call our own shots.
“As it turns out, I like the rutted path I’ve carved into the land.”
“So what if I’ve mowed down all the grass? It will grow back.”
“Stop judging me. It just so happens that I like to drink muddy water.”
The prophet Isaiah has us pegged. He states: “All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way.” Yes, we go our own way, and we rely upon our own understanding because we think we know best. In our worst moments of disobedience and defiance, we’ll stubbornly resist being led by God. At other times, we’re guilty of placing too much faith in the status quo and will not see that we need to get moving, or we’ll get stuck in a rut of our own making.
For God to be able to lead us in right paths, we’ve got to relinquish control and trust that God knows what God is doing. Of course, that means doing things differently—like hewing new paths where once there were none. It means looking around to see that we’ve gotten stuck and that we need to understand that God is urging us to new pastures that we hadn’t seen before.
To be led in right paths means that we relinquish control and follow our shepherd, who knows what the way of righteousness looks like.
Oh, and what about that bighorn sheep who was blocking our path? What did we do to get it to move?
We clapped. Once it was startled, it knew it needed to get on its way.