Convicted and conflicted

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Brent Kipfer
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 1:31 pm
Location: Brussels, Ontario

Convicted and conflicted

Post by Brent Kipfer »

The reading for this day leaves me feeling both convicted and conflicted. Like Said, I easily become distracted from my flock-tending responsibilities – and I need to hear words like, “Do not come home without them.� Ready to receive the grace of a welcome into the Father’s house, I am all too prone to forget about the others who remain lost.

So, I am convicted by the way that the story of Said and his father pictures the priority that our heavenly Father places on gathering his scattered flock – and the role he gives us in bringing them home. At the same time, I think that there is an element of harshness in Said’s father’s words that, if understood to literally reflect God’s word to us, obscure two dynamics of our shepherding under Jesus Christ.

First, I can only imagine God speaking the words, “Do not come home without them,� as an expression of his love for the rest of the flock – not as a condition for my entry into his home. Our welcome into the home Jesus has prepared for us remains a gift – one that makes possible our own involvement in his mission of gathering, but a gift that is not dependent on our performance as under-shepherds.

Second, I receive this charge with the understanding that lost human beings – even more than lost goats or sheep - exercise their own freedom to respond to the gospel. Though I am responsible for searching and inviting, I cannot actually gather in one who does not want to be found.

In my heart, I can hear the Father say, “Bring them home with you.� With my own welcome secure and an understanding that I cannot manufacture a positive response in others, I receive this word with joy and trust the Lord to lead me in bringing home the full flock he has entrusted to me.
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