The Bliss in Becoming a Farm Animal

I have never been so glad for being named after a farm animal.

In those days in the elementary schools, where we would pull out a Name Meaning book in our library class to discover and giggle at the meaning of our names, I was expecting "Rachel" to mean elegant, beauty, princess, you know, one of those nice meanings tacked onto female names that make a girl feel special.

And there, beside my name, the Hebrew translation made it's grand reveal in three letters:

ewe

That's right.






Old McDonald had a farm and there was an ewe on it.

An ewe that smells and eats  grass and makes a horrendous bahhhhhh sound and is regarded as an animal on the--ahem--less-intelligent side.

 Sheep are known to be stubborn, they are known to follow blindly, to walk right behind another off a cliff.

Great.

Until it really did become great and I read the Words about a Shepherd, and how we are His sheep.

I am the good shepherd a Savior says,
My sheep listen to my voice; 
I know them and they follow me. 
I give them eternal life, and they shall never die. 
No one can snatch them away from me.
(John 10:14,27-30 GNT)

Embracing my name, the name of one who is stubborn, helpless, really quite clueless, and utterly in need of a Shepherd, I am secure.

Humility becomes my cry as I resolve to assume my role, not as the master of my plans, nor seeking an exhaustible pasture based on my truly crippled understanding of what is good for me, of what the real prize is.

No, I will cry out that I am the one who needs help, who can't eat, walk, live, behave, speak, think, feel without that Good Shepherd.

Yes, the sweet green pastures and the delightful light in the dark valleys, that is the positioning myself to be a sheep. That is joy.

Will you join me in this flock? Of knowing what it means to be a sheep, all to be known by a Shepherd who saves again and again and carries us into eternity and life in all its fullness?