Thursday 7th – Isaiah 40:9-20
The heading for these verses at verse 9 in my ESV Bible says, ‘The Greatness of God.’
We considered the greatness of God in earlier devotions, for today I want to consider his greatness in the context of what it says in verse 11, ‘He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.’ We are back to the Lord as our Shepherd. His greatness in his gentleness.
I had got to the point of preparing the devotions for this week, I had done the ones for Sunday – Tuesday and suddenly when it came to yesterday’s devotion I had for the first time while preparing the devotions over this period of time hit a brick wall! I had two attempts at putting something together but scrapped them, but deep inside I felt it needed to be about lambs! I ended up putting my planning and prepping aside and going for a walk. The next morning, I felt an inner witness to devote the three days mentioned as yesterday to Isaiah 40 and as I went through it you’ve, probably guessed it, there it was in the chapter, the word ‘lambs’ – ‘He will gather the lambs in his arms.’ (v11) So this is our subject for today. Believe it or not, while I was preparing this actual devotion I had an email from Iain and it was pointing me to a song he had discovered that morning it was at this point of my prepping that I decided to listen to it and guess what it was called? ‘Gentle Shepherd come and lead us for we need you to help us to find our way.’ wow, talk about a confirmation!
There are lots of beautiful things we can see in this world around us, and to me one of the most beautiful is to see a field of sheep and to look at all the lambs playing, running around and skipping together.
A happy farmer is the one who has had a successful lambing season, but every farmer or shepherd knows that during the lambing season there will always be loss, lambs that are still-born or a ewe that has died during birthing leaving orphan lambs. It then becomes the responsibility as soon as possible for the shepherd to do what he can to provide for the orphaned lamb. It could be an adoption with another ewe, or it may be to have to hand rear it, the lamb to become what we call a ‘tiddler’. Being a farmer’s son, I have been involved in this, I was never going to be a farmer, if I had had to remain on the farm it would have either have been as a maintenance worker with the machinery etc or as a shepherd. There was an inbuilt instinct in me from a youngster for the sheep, maybe that was God planting a spiritual seed in my life in preparation for being a shepherd for his flock, the Church and in particular you as the flock he has placed under my care in the present.
We often had orphan lambs which became tiddlers, they would be the lambs that we would bottle feed and during lambing season the farmhouse would become like an animal hospital as the weak, cold and starving lambs would be brought in from the cold and warmed up, wrapped in hessian sacks (sometimes in the Rayburn oven with the door left open or into an electric clothes airer that my mum had) and then fed. Often it was us the children that had the responsibility of feeding them every day. Eventually when they were strong enough, they would be placed in the barn with other lambs until time for them to go out into the field with the other sheep with their lambs. It was particularly during lambing season that you would see the gentler side of the farmer / shepherd.
Our Scripture tells us that the Lord who is our Shepherd is a gentle Shepherd, he knows those who are his sheep (Psalm 100) and he cares for us. These verses tell us that he TENDS his flock, that is he looks after our needs, he feeds us, he watches over us, he checks us over, he heals the wounds, he keeps us safe and should it be needed he lovingly corrects us. I love to picture the Scripture when it says that as a shepherd he gathers the lambs in his arms – I don’t know what you imagine here, but I see us as the sheep especially when we may be afraid, or downhearted, or even broken-hearted, and he the Shepherd stooping down to picks us up, to scoop us up into his arms and hold us tightly, close to his chest, where we can hear his heart beat. It reminds me of the well-known poem ‘Footprints’ where there seems to be only one set of footprints in the sand, and the conclusion is that in those moments I was carrying you in my arms. (poem at the end)
We have touched several times over the weeks about the Lord as Shepherd and us as his sheep. Today may we learn that we can always trust our Good Shepherd, he will never fail us or let us down, whatever our situation, he is with us, ready at a moment’s notice to pick us up and hold us close to his side.
One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.
This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”
He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.”