Aunt Sally's Little Lambs

When Jesus speaks of His relationship with His sheep, He points to the intimacy He knows with those who belong to Him. He also reveals how He leads and guides His sheep - His sheep hear His voice calling them by name, and then in the hearing of His instructions, they follow Him (John 10:1-18). Two questions present themselves to those who are in the church, the body of Christ: Do you know your Shepherd intimately, and do you hear His Word? Clearly, Jesus wants intimacy with you, and He wants you to know His voice and hear what He has to say. This is a wake-up call: "Church, are you intimate with your Shepherd, and are you opening the pages of His Word to hear Him speak?"

Catherine Martin, author of Knowing and Loving the Bible, tells a story about her friends Aunt Sally that I absolutely must share with you...

Aunt Sally ran quickly to the barn as the ewes were giving birth to the lambs. Sally's husband, Ray, put her in charge of the bum lambs, those lambs that were rejected by their mothers, a common occurance with ewes who had multiple births. Bum lambs were hand raised by the ranchers until they were grown and assimilated into the general flock of sheep. Aunt Sally took the first little lamb, rejected by its mother, cradled him close to her, and rubbed him down with an old towel. She noticed two little humps on its head where horns would eventually grow and whispered softly, "I'll call you Buckaroo."

Just then, her husband opened the door of the kitchen, "I can't understand it," he said. "These ewes are so stubborn - here are two more who need your special care." She picked up one of the little lambs, "You'll be Fluffy, she informed him as she rubbed him down, fluffing up the wool. She gathered up the third little lamb. "With these short little legs," she said, "who could you be but Stumpy!" Just as she finished drying and feeding her three little special lambs, Ray came through the door with one more bum and said, ""This is the last one." Aunt Sally washed him, fed him, and called him Lefty because he was the only one left.

For the next few weeks, Aunt Sally cared for her little lambs, calling them each by their names many times a day. She grew attached to them as they played, ate, and slept in the yard of the ranch house. Aunt Sally reluctantly let her lambs join the rest of the sheep to go with the ranch hands to the summer pasture.

One day, at the end of summer, she heard the noise of the sheep coming home. She ran to find her lambs, forgetting how different they would look after three months. When she looked out over all the sheep, she could not distinquish one from another. Then, an idea came to Aunt Sally. She leaned against the fence and began calling her lambs by name. "Fluffy!" "Stumpy!" "Buckaroo!" "Lefty!" Over and over again she called out their names. One by one, three sheep made their way over to the fence. She could clearly distinquish all three. "Why, I know you, you are Buckaroo - those little horns are growing...Here's Fluffy, with all that wool...And this has to be Stumpy!" she exclaimed. "But where's Lefty?" She called again, but it was apparent that Lefty's ears had grown dull to the voice of the shepherdess.

There is a great lesson in this true story for all of us. Those three sheep knew the voice of their shepherd so well. Do you know you Lord, your good Shepherd, or are you like Lefty, whose ears had grown dull? When you spend time in God's Word, you will grow accustomed to hearing His voice and recognize His call to you. Sadly, there are too many in the church whose hearing has grown dull. No wonder Jesus often said, "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear".

If you have never discovered the excitement of opening the Bible and hearing your Shepherd speak to you, then as Ran quoted Jesus on Sunday, "Wake up!" Run to Him, His Word and get to know the voice of Jehovah Rohi.