Volume 35, No. 9
Savior, Like a Shepherd
We celebrated Earth Day a couple of weeks ago in worship and Harry Wooten visited Sister Grove Farm and recorded Rev. Sarah Macias giving the sermon in front of the pasture with sheep and dogs in the background. Harry then sang “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us” in the sheep’s pen. And the marvelous beauty of the Earth was declared by the choir. In her sermon, Sarah reminded us how God, in God’s mercy and care, shepherds us and, thus, we possess the responsibility to shepherd and restore the planet. And I also learned a new word, flerd, a combination of herd and flock.
I’ve felt the tug of a kind and loving shepherd in these busy and somewhat harried days since submitting my resignation as the Pastor of this flerd called Royal Lane. Every week, I’ve received a call from Jordan Weilage. Sometimes I am available to answer it and sometimes it goes to voicemail. But the message is always the same. Jordan reminds me that he is thinking about my family. He whimsically quips that he won’t be able to call me Pastor Mike anymore (although, I will gladly always by his pastor). And he says that he cares about me and prays for baby Ford. Jordan has shepherded me through this time of grief and change.
It is my hope that I was able to shepherd Royal Lane through the open fields and also through the rocky crevices. We’ve sat by still waters and eaten in green pastures. We’ve even made it through some dim and shadowy valleys as well. I pray, on some of those days, our souls have even felt restored.
As Psalm 23 assures us, God is with us through it all. Today, some of us might be in a time of green pastures and still waters. Others of us may be lost in the labyrinth of uncertainty and doubt. Wherever we find ourselves as followers of Jesus, we are not alone. We will never be abandoned. God will always come looking for us. God will always love us. Because God is the Good Shepherd leading us through our one “wild and precious life.”
May the sweet Spirit of our Creator breathe purpose and passion into our nostrils, giving us hope and strength to go wherever the next adventure takes us. And let us remember, this day and every day, that “Thou has bought us, Thine we are.”
Pastor Mike