The Good Shepherd

Hey guys! As most people know I have been working at camp this summer which is partially the reason that I even knew about the expedition trip. With that said being back at camp for a third summer has been nothing short of an adventure! While at camp this summer I have taken on a new role as a counselor for our Elevate (High School) program. This has given me an opportunity to see as well as counsel students that I have had for years and see the growth that the Lord has brought into their life in the short time that I have had the opportunity to know them. With that said this last week my team and I had a particularly young group of students in our program and they were nothing short of interesting. Counseling them could only be compared to counseling a cabin of kindergarteners (I say that in the most endearing way possible). This particular group of students would follow my fellow counselors and I around “blindly”. Which instantly made me think of sheep and made me call them that all week. So as I watched and observed the students all week long as they would be walking around and following their counselors around I could not get this image out of my head. Then I began to think about how in the Bible we are often described as sheep and how the Lord is our good shepherd. In Psalm 23 David begins by saying “the Lord is my shepherd…” and in John 10 Jesus tells the parable of the good shepherd who seeks for His sheep. This passage in John 10 is also a contrast of Ezekiel 34 where the Lord is calling out all the bad shepherds that were supposed to protect and watch over His people but because they were wicked they did not. But in John 10 Jesus explains how the Lord is THE GOOD SHEPHERD who cares for, protects, and loves His sheep. This is something that has been reinforced to me over the last couple weeks because the Lord is Good and wants to shepherd me as I walk humbly with him. This is something that as I step into this next season I want to continuously be reminded of. Because when I remember that the Lord is the one shepherding me I am not afraid of the lions that I might face along the way.