Caring Even When You Don't Want to Care

[GCTSGRice]

Day 10 - Lost and Found
I have seen many sheep come and go over the past three decades. Some the Lord has called to other pastures to be tended by a different shepherd. Some are now in the care of the Good Shepherd. Others have left because of hurt feelings, or they were upset about ministry direction, or they just simply wandered away. These are the ones that I should care about, but I must admit, there are times I simply don't want to care about them. It's just easier to "let them go," and to attribute their lost condition to something beyond my control. Dr. Laniak says that "like sheep, people wander off and lose their way." They "need to be be rescued and returned to the flock where they belong." But I selfishly don't have the desire to go after them. Their lostness, I surmise, is their own doing. It is easier to go after the truly lost - those entirely outside the fold. But what of those who have been there and gone astray? Am I like the hireling who cares nothing for the sheep or their protection from the adversary? Or are these sheep the very ones I must shepherd - the ones who must be "counted by ones"? I must confess that I am driven by apathy at times, much less concerned for the well-being of wandering sheep than I ought to be, plagued with an "I-could-care-less" attitude. Yet if leadership truly means "looking for the lost," who am I to define what being lost means? And if I care so little at times for those who have wandered and gotten lost, does my attitude reveal a flipancy about the truly lost who need to be saved? This task of shepherd leadership is difficult - an "arduous retrieval" - and I am often caught up in my own "self-absorbed existence." No wonder I think it is simply easier to let them go! I am captured by this reading and need to heed the challenge issued. True anguish over the lost "expresses itself in passionate intercession and determined action." The "relentless, optimistic persistence of the Good Shepherd" demands nothing less. May His passion fill this cold and callous heart again!