In Western civilization, the concept of a personal shepherd is relatively meaningless. Sheep today graze in carefully fenced-in pastures and are guarded by specially bred dogs and identified by a number tattooed in their ears. Computers track when they are born and when they are ready for either shearing or slaughter. There is no personal shepherd. Unless the sheep are on a very small farm, even their owner can’t tell one sheep from another.

But the Eastern shepherd was, and in many parts of the world still is, very different. He raised his sheep from the time they were lambs and maintained responsibility for them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, year in and year out, for their entire lifetime. There were no dogs or fences or tattoos or computers. In Jesus' day the countryside was filled with deep crevices and ravines. Patches of grass were sparse. So the shepherd had to establish a personal, working relationship with each sheep, developing its love and trust in him in order to lead it to where the path was the smoothest, the pasture was the greenest, the water was the cleanest, and the nights were the safest. The shepherd always led the sheep.

He knew their names, and when he called them, they recognized his voice, following him like a swarm of little chicks follows the mother hen. When he stopped, the sheep huddled closely around him, pressing against his legs. Their personal relationship with him was based on his voice, which they knew and trusted.

In this parable in John 10:3-4, you and I are the sheep, the Good Shepherd is Jesus, and the voice of the Good Shepherd is the Word of God. Our Shepherd speaks to us through the written words of our Bible, and His words are personal.

• When our Shepherd speaks, He speaks to us personally — by name. 
  
• He knows us inside and out.  
• He knows our thoughts before they’re on our minds, and our words before they’re even formed on our tongues, and our emotions before they’re felt in our hearts, and our actions before there is any movement. 
• He speaks in the language of our own personal lives.

I must ask myself:

Am I following the Shepherd, or is He following me?

When was the last time I heard His voice?

Does He call me by name?  Am I listening for His call?

Do I know His voice when He calls?  Does He know my voice?

When I read my Bible, am I focused on the facts and information, 
or am I listening for His voice/

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

BLOG:       www.hisrivers.org 
EMAIL:      his.rivers@gmail.com

I recently came across the following article by N.D. Wilson - entitled Spend Your Life. It is exerted from his book, Death by Living. What a great example of being a River and not a Reservoir. I hope it will encourage you as it has me.

SPEND YOUR LIFE
by N.D. Wilson

On Saturday nights, our family gathers at my parents’ house to eat and laugh and drink to grace. My sisters and their husbands come with their tribes and I with mine.

My grandmother, mother to my father, went into the ground on top of a hill two years ago. James Irwin Wilson comes to these Saturday dinners alone (and yet not). He is the one most likely to ask if he can invite an ex-convict, or to need a ride because he loaned his car (knowingly) to a thief, and now it is gone. His heart struggles. His blood struggles. The man who rowed at the Naval Academy now walks with a cane. The boy who was there when a stallion was rearing and his father was falling to the ground, the boy who ran a ten-acre farm and finished high school and worked eight-hour shifts every night in the Omaha stockyard is now eighty-five and not yet spent. Though he is trying to be. My grandfather has no intention of ending his life with closed fists. His hands will be open and they will be empty.

I began meeting with him early on those Saturday afternoons, and I set up a camera. He was uncomfortable that first time, because I was demanding that he talk about himself, and because he had forgotten to wear a tie. I laughed (in my sweater and jeans). He hasn’t forgotten his tie since.

When he turned eighty-five, he asked for no presents. Like a good hobbit (though I have always said that he is more entish), he wanted to give to us. He is not in the business of accumulating, especially now, as he hears the crowd counting down. He had some birthday menu requests (with pie for dessert), and then he wanted to tell stories to his great grandchildren.

That Saturday, aunts and uncles and cousins came, and when we had eaten and sung and laughed, we settled him in an armchair and sixteen great-grandchildren wrapped around his feet on the floor.

He had no doodads to give. No cheap party favors. Instead, he gave those kids what they could never buy for themselves, what they could never find on their own. He gave them the memories of a boy on a Nebraska farm with brothers, a boy trying to break a wild prairie mustang. He gave them memories of his mother, born in a sod dugout in the prairie grass. He gave a crowd of mostly small people (who all exist because of his choices in his moments) a glimpse at a time long gone, at moments extinct, at vapor seen with his eyes and remembered.

I — and all of those children — reap a tremendous daily harvest thanks to his faithfulness, thanks to the man with the cane who has received his life with joy, and whose large hands have always been open. Thanks to the Author who crafted such a character and set him on his path, who claimed his heart and carried his burden.

For my part, as he sat and talked, I held a camera. A time will come, I pray, when I am the spent one in the chair still aiming to give. And if I reach his age in 2063, I hope, even then, to introduce this man to generations unborn, to give them more than words, but the flickering image of this face, and the sound of this voice.

On his birthday, this grandfather is not yet done. He has more wealth to give. He chose a passage of Scripture for each of his children and their spouses, for each of their children and their spouses, and for each of their children. Forty-six souls (and counting). He asked a son to arrange and print each passage on archive paper, and he wrote a note of marginalia to each of us, in the sharp, perfect handwriting of another time.

To the youngest of all, my sister’s two-month-old son, he hand-wrote a simple message next to Colossians 1:9-12: “You may not remember me. I remember you and prayed for you when you were one day old. -Great Grandpa”

My sister cried.

My grandfather’s accounts are in order. His seed is sown. His hoard is elsewhere, in the faces at his feet, and in the hundreds and thousands of stories his own story has touched and will continue to shape.

Drink your wine. Laugh from your gut. Burden your moments with thankfulness. Be as empty as you can be when that clock winds down. Spend your life. 

And if time is a river, may you leave a wake.

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

BLOG:    www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:   his.rivers@gmail.com

"One of the defining moments in my prayer life happened a decade ago. I was in a small group with a friend who worked for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Georgetown University. Jeremy was working on a shoestring budget, and their campus ministry needed a computer. He shared the request at the end of our meeting, and I agreed to pray for it, but when I started praying for it, I felt that the Lord wanted me to stop praying. It was like the Holy Spirit said, “Why are you asking Me? You’re the one with the extra computer!” I quit praying in mid-sentence. I told Jeremy we didn't need to pray about it because I had an extra computer he could have.

I wonder how many of our prayer requests are within our own power to answer? Yet we ask God to do what we can do ourselves. And then we wonder why God doesn't respond. Maybe it’s because God won’t do for us what we can do for ourselves. God isn't honored by prayers that are within the realm of human possibility; God is honored when we ask Him to do what is humanly impossible. That way, God gets all the glory!

There are some things we don’t need to pray about:

• We don’t need to pray about loving our neighbors.
• We don’t need to pray about giving generously or serving sacrificially.
• We don’t need to pray about blessing someone when it is in our power to do so.
• We don’t have to pray about turning the other cheek or going the extra mile.

God has already spoken on those subjects.

1.  There comes a moment when praying becomes a form of spiritual procrastination. It’s time to stop praying and start acting.

• Quit praying about the program and fill out an application. 
• Quit praying for the friend you hurt and make a phone call. 
• Don’t just complain to God about your coworker; circle them in prayer. 
• Don’t just pray for missionaries; write a check.

I wonder what would happen if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels, until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it... began reading again?

2. Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. Pray about everything. Then pray some more. But at some point, we have to quit praying and start acting - in obedience

One of the great mistakes we make is asking God to do for us what God wants us to do for Him. We confuse roles. For example, we try to convict those around us of sin. But that is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility, not ours. 
We are called to pray about everything, but there comes a time when praying can be a form of disobedience, laziness, or negligence. We can’t just pray like it depends on God; we also must work like it depends on us.

When everything is said and done, God won’t say, “Well thought,” “well planned,” or even “well prayed.” There is only one commendation He will give: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Excerpted from Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson, copyright Zondervan.

It got me to thinking about how I am sometime that spiritual procrastinator he speaks about. How many times have I found myself praying for something or about something, that I know perfectly well 'What I am to do'?  I will do that tomorrow! But it is always tomorrow isn't it? The truth is that most of us are 'educated way beyond our level of obedience'. We know what to do, but we settle for.... "I need to keep praying about that', or I will do that tomorrow. 

I am reminded of the TV sitcom with Bob Newhart, where he plays the Psychologist - Dr. Bob Hartley. In response to his clients many wows and problems, Dr Hartley pauses for a moment and then very sincerely says, "I have thought long and hard about the solution to your problem, and it is this:  "STOP IT... JUST STOP IT"

Okay Lord, I will !!   and NOW!!, not tomorrow!!

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 0236
404.784.4618

BLOG:      www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:    his.rivers@gmail.com

Growing up - especially between the ages of 9 to 14, I loved baseball. The Brooklyn Dodgers were my team. Why? I don’t really know? Maybe it was because they lost so many times to the New York Yankees. I never liked the Yankees - still don’t - But there was one player from those teams in the Fifties and Sixties that I did like - Yogi Berra. Who could not like someone named Yogi? Yogi Berra, born May 12, 1925, played most of his 19- year baseball career for the New York Yankees. He stood 5’ 7”, yet was one of the all time greatest catchers in the game. 

The other reason I liked him? Playing little league in those days, I played catcher - All 5 feet of me. The catchers gear hung to the ground - and that was when I was standing up! 

Over the years, Yogi’s quotes have become legend. They wouldn’t be nearly so funny or memorable, except they were things he actually said - and sometimes more than once.

Some of the ones that come to mind are: 

• “You can observe a lot by watching”

• “It’s not over till it’s over”

• “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up somewhere else.”

• “You’ve got to be very careful, if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.”

• And one of the best….” If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

One morning, not long ago, while still in that half sleep - half awake state, I began thinking about the spiritual implications of that ‘yogi-ism’. Now, I don’t pretend to apply great Theological Truth to this statement, but here is how my thinking went….

• Because I have been crucified with Christ
  
• Because I ‘die daily’ 
• Because Christ himself is the Lord of my Life 
• Because the life I now live is by faith in the one who died for me 
• Because Christ Himself is the very road I walk on 
• Because I am backing my way into the future, holding onto His hand 
• Because it is Him who is directing my path 
• Because He makes the crooked straight 
• Because everything is in His hands…. 
• (And I am sure you could add a whole bunch more)

Maybe Yogi Berra IS right…. When you come to a fork in the road - TAKE IT.  Because after all -- with all of the above being true - whichever fork He chooses for the two of us to take - I going along! 

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS
7982 Hillcrest Trail
Jonesboro, Georgia 30236
404.784.4618

BLOG:      www.hisrivers.org
EMAIL:     his.rivers@gmail.com