All We Like Sheep

From one of my favorite devotional books for moms:

"When a sheep refuses to follow, the shepherd has no choice but to teach the sheep a lesson for its own protection. The shepherd will break one of the sheep's legs, and carry the sheep around his neck until its leg heals. The animal becomes so acquainted with its master's voice and ways that it then graciously follows and obeys. Though a difficult lesson, the shepherd saves one who would otherwise be lost."

Wow. That's a harsh lesson. But it got me thinking (I apologize for the rambling thoughts here).

Where do I need God to break me?

That's a difficult to thing to think about, as my pride wants to say, "There's nothing wrong with me. I don't need God to fix anything." But I need to face the reality that I am not perfect (I've known that for a long time, but I do need to remind myself of that!). There is only One who is perfect, and that's not me. And since His goal for me to be more like Him, I need to accept that I've got more work to do. Work on my character. Character work is not usually pleasant.

I am like a sheep, we all are. We aren't very bright, and we don't always know what is good for us. We like to do our own thing, and our thing often is not good for us. We need the guidance of a our Shepherd. And sometimes we need to learn how to listen to our Shepherd. If we don't learn the lesson of listening to Him, then sometimes He will take drastic measures in teaching us how to listen.

I'm not saying that every bad thing that happens to us is God disciplining us. Sometimes bad things just happen because we live in a sinful, fallen world. But we can still use those bad things to learn to listen more closely to God.

I need more time to listen to God.