Parting with the sheep!

For anyone who knows me, they know I have a large sheep collection (the above photo is just a small sample) and there is a good reason for it. And many who I have explained the reason to, then decide that they also should collect sheep! 

So what is this ’sheep thing' all about?

I once heard a speaker (Bonnie Thomas) at a Women’s Event talk about an incident she had experienced. If I recall correctly, she had met an older eccentric Christian single lady whose home was full of collected sheep ‘stuff’ - ornaments etc including having a stuffed (taxiderm) sheep sitting atop her white grand piano, and Bonnie had asked her ‘why?’. The reply was something along the lines of as a single lady prone to worry, she decided she needed many reminders around her that she was just the sheep and Jesus was her Shepherd and she could trust him with everything. Amidst the conversation that followed, the lady gave Bonnie a little pewter lapel sheep pin, which she was wearing on the day I heard her speak. At that point I decided that if ever I began ‘collecting’ anything, I would collect sheep because of the meaning and context of sheep in Scripture and the reminders it would also give me to look to my Shepherd.

It was several years before I found my own ’first sheep’ - a hand-made tiny lapel-pin sheep, but from that point on whenever someone saw that little white lapel-pin sheep or saw my growing collection over the years, they would ask ‘why the sheep?’…and I would share the story. 

So over the decades I have amassed quite a large collection of sheep ornaments, sheep on tea-towels, sheep on socks, sheep on mugs, sheep on posters or paintings, little sheep, big sheep, fluffy sheep, cuddly sheep, pottery sheep etc etc. 

As we have to part with almost everything in our big move, almost all my ‘sheep’ stuff has had to be sold or given away. Most of it I have specifically given away to those who upon hearing the story in recent days, decided they too would like to start collecting sheep. So hopefully God has used many of them to help people more greatly give him glory by trusting him more as their Good Shepherd.

However, just a few days ago I came across a particular sheep and for some reason, as I picked it up to decide what to do with it, the idea of parting with it, just suddenly hit me harder than the others previously, even though it didn’t really have any extra-special significance. 

It got me thinking about two truths:

1. As one of Jesus’ sheep, I don’t have to worry about ever being separated from his presence, or being left-behind, or being excluded from some future allocation of inclusion, or not being able to ‘be with’ him for all eternity or being uncertain about what he is going to do with me at the end of the age. I don’t have to fear a coming day of painful rejection or that any partings with other sheep belonging to the Shepherd is final, because we will all meet again for eternity. What a wonderful joy and privilege, all because of what Jesus has done for us.

2. There are those who think they are sheep belonging to the shepherd but are actually they don’t belong to him and a day of parting will come—eternal parting. But this is not some simple thing, it is a parting with those that God has created to be his, but that he can’t take to himself forever because they rejected him. He has no joy in the death of the wicked (Ez 18:23), and doesn’t wish for any to perish (2 Peter 3:9). 

Unlike my sheep ornaments which are all sheep, those ones that will be left behind are actually not true sheep at all, but the bible describes them as goats. In Australia I found the idea rather strange of sheep looking like goats and getting them mixed, as goats and sheep in that part of the world don’t look similar at all. But here in Africa sheep are not as fluffy/woolly, and especially from a distance, the goats and sheep can appear very similar. It’s only on closer proximity and examination that the differences can be seen amidst a group of mixed animals grazing together. (The quick way to check if you are not familiar with what they look like is that the goat’s tail is ‘up’ and the sheep’s tail is ‘down’.)

If I suddenly had a sad ‘parting’ feeling with my pottery sheep (maybe its because I saw it more often as we used it as a door-stop), how much more does it sadden and grieve God’s heart when he knows a day is coming when those he created to be his, will never be, and there will be a forever eternal final and full parting. 

Our move means I will miss all my sheep, but it also means we have many long held friendships that will soon feel the grief of a temporary parting. But as I pondered on ‘parting’ with my sheep, I am reminded that there is a two-fold lesson: 1. of thankfulness and joy of being a sheep that belongs securely and eternally with my Good Shepherd, but also of; 2. a reminder that there are many ‘lost sheep’ that the Shepherd wants to be ‘brought home’ and he asks us to share in the privilege of bringing them home so that the most significant future parting of all doesn’t need to occur for them, and we can have the joy of re-uniting with them one day.

When you see a sheep next time…remember the story that got me started collecting sheep, with the reminder to not worry but trust and rest in the loving care of our Shepherd…but also remember the extra two-fold lesson and rejoice again in being a sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd, and resolve again to be part of his Great Commission to share in gathering in the lost sheep who need an eternal Shepherd of their soul…

...and maybe you will start collecting sheep too, and passing on all the lessons that we can learn in life and Scripture from them.

'Last' Game Drives and Fun Surprises of the African Bush!

After two more game drives on successive weekends in the nearby Mokolodi Nature (Game) Reserve, I have some more photos to share. Both drives began very discouragingly with hardly seeing anything…but then ended with many surprises…like life, you can’t judge the end at the beginning, you have to actually traverse the tracks and wait to see what God brings and sometimes when you think not much is happening, suddenly there is a surprise! This has been the pattern of our last few Game drives. 

The first had the surprise of seeing the Rhino as mentioned in a previous blogpost,

After seeing almost nothing, the second ended in seeing three hippo relatively close in the beautiful afternoon sun - we have never seen three hippo together so close in that Game Reserve before! Just awesome!

Then the third and lastest drive was also quite 'boring' for much of it, when suddenly we spotted some Kudu...and not just one or two but we counted 11 together in a Kudu 'nursery' - and we had never seen that before either!

then there were birds up high and down low...

And then we suddenly saw a Wildebeest - who posed very nicely for good photos

and then a good sized Waterbuck having an afternoon snack of bush grass

and after some zebra and a lone giraffe hidden behind trees (and no photos of those)...we were almost at the gate to leave and suddenly on our left was a large giraffe less than 10 meters from the car..and he co-operated very well for some good photos!

Jesus' Greatest Miracle - learning new lessons about honour and shame from the feeding of the 5000

Did you know that the feeding of the 5000 is the only miracle of Jesus (apart from the resurrection) that is recorded in all four gospels (Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, John 6)?

This may make it the greatest miracle. I guess the gospel writers thought so if it was the only one so important and prominent that all of them wanted to include it in their good news story about Jesus.

It’s one of those stories which many of us learnt in Sunday School. 

However, maybe there is more for us to learn from it than it simply being an example of how powerful Jesus was to turn a little bit of food into a lot of food!

Sometimes familiarity can breed ignorance. We can think we know it so well that we don’t really take the time to understand it and we can miss elements hidden in plain sight.

The more I study the issues of honour and shame, the more I realise of how much of the Bible I have ‘missed’ the point of. So I want to take a few moments to draw our attention to a fresh look at the ‘honour’ elements of this story, hopefully to give more context, and thus more useful observations, insights, and application:

• Lunch from a young boy - John’s gospel is the only one that mentions the 5 loaves and two fish came from a child’s lunch. In the cultural context, children were not valuable or prioritised, and if it was anything like in Africa, children were nowhere near the priority when it came to food and meals. Children usually eat last and/or least and are often chased away from food preparation areas. But here in this miracle not only did a child and a child’s food become the major focus, but everyone ate from the child’s food, including adults and social elders! Jesus honoured the value of a child by letting the child and his lunch be the centre of attention and via Jesus’ miracle, it was what provided for everyone there. He turned upside down cultural priorities that ignored or dismissed children (Matt 19:14) and elevated what would have usually been disregarded as insignificant.

• The honour of the mother who took the effort and care to send her boy with some lunch as he ran out of the house earlier in the day, when it seems that maybe others didn’t (or maybe for some reason that boy hadn’t eaten his yet!…but it was a good thing the mother still had given it to her son)

• Jesus honoured Andrew who was willing to at least tentatively offer what was available, even though he doubted. Our faith doesn’t have to be full and confident for God to act, it just has to be enough to bring what we have to Jesus. He will do the rest. Andrew noticed people and brought others to Jesus. He brought his brother Simon Peter (John 1:41) and here he brought this young boy with his lunch. Andrew wasn’t maybe the prominent speaker of the disciples (his brother Peter gets that nomination), but obviously he had a strong but quiet faith that knew Jesus was the answer to the needs of others.

• Jesus honoured the disciples by including them in the sourcing of the food and distribution of the food and blessing. Jesus could have just said ‘food be there’ like he said ‘wind be still’. But He didn’t. When we include others in what we are doing we are communicating that we value them and thus it is a form of honouring them. We can often think that to include others and have them help us means we are lacking the capacity, and so we often want to prove we can ‘do it by ourselves’. Or we might fear others sharing in the glory of our possible success. But Jesus didn’t have the disciples be involved because he lacked something and ’needed’ their help. Jesus didn’t lack the power to feed everyone. He had the humility to involve others. He sent the disciples to find what resources were available and then used what was offered up to him. Then he had them organise the people into groups and hand out the food and gather up the left-overs. He included them to participate in the process. He calls us to do the same…to participate in the process of fishing for men and feeding his sheep, caring for others, and praying for others.

• Jesus showed honour and respect for God’s provision through good stewardship of what they had. He was not wasteful but had the left-overs gathered up so that ’nothing would be lost’ (John 6). It also honoured God’s creation by not just leaving a mess of crumbs and fish bones strewn across the area at the end, but by gathering up the left-overs. This also showed honour and respect for others who might come that way later and would not want to smell or step on old fish.

• Jesus honoured the Father by giving thanks - some gospels in the English use the word ‘blessing’ - that Jesus ‘blessed’ the food. John’s gospel describes it as Jesus ‘gave thanks’ using the word ‘eucharist’ which is probably a good way to understand it. This is linked to the word ‘charis’ which is also from where the word ‘grace’ comes from. Romans 1:21 links the importance of honouring God with giving thanks. Mark, Luke and Matthew in their gospels choose to use the word ‘eulogeo’ which means to speak well of - ’say a good word', to bless, to praise, or express gratitude. Both are words of acknowledging the importance of another. In other words, honouring another. In this case, honouring God the Father and giving the credit to Him for His provision.

SO what does the miracle show us? -

Apart from the fact that Jesus can make food go further than expected and supply all our physical needs, it shows us that:

• he is not limited by human resources. 
• he is not limited to our idea of mathematics. 
• when we like Philip limit our walk with God and understanding of His kingdom to what we can figure out, we can get it very wrong! 
• he can supply all our needs. 
• we don’t have to have all the answers about how God is going to do something, we just have to offer what we have and let Him take care of the rest. 
• just like the food that was ‘more than enough’, what Jesus gives is not limited or restricted by our understanding or what we think are logical or ’normal’ processes —whether its food for hungry stomachs or grace for hungry hearts that fall short of glory, Jesus will always be enough and plenty. 

Furthermore, we should consider that…

1. this was not some random miracle, but Luke 9:11 tells us that it was at the end of Jesus teaching about the kingdom of God and curing people of disease (which pictures for us that Jesus came not only to cleanse and heal bodies but to cleanse and heal souls, rescuing them from shame and restoring them to full glory by forgiving sin     Luke 5:17-26).  

2.This miracle is within the time of teaching that he was giving at a desolate place in the region of Bethsaida. John relates it stating it happened the day before the crowd had essentially followed him and found him on the other side of the sea of Galilee. It was there he taught them about him being the ‘bread of life’ (v35), which he directly linked with saying in v 37-40 ‘All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out…everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life…'

3.This miracle pictures for us that His gift of glory in salvation, is not only free (the people didn’t have to spend money or travel anywhere to partake, they just had to respond and receive), but it is abundant. 

We don’t have to worry if the grace Jesus offers is just enough for a certain number of people that we can count, but we can be assurred that his grace is, will, and can, never be exhausted. 

Not only were the people present fed, but there were baskets left over. We don’t actually even know how many the exact numbers were who were filled. But we just know, that even though the numbers were big (and no human calculation could conceive of a way to feed or explain how that many people could be fed with just a boy’s lunch of 5 small loaves of bread and 2 small fish), it was done. We could say that he over-estimated the amount and ‘wasted’ 12 baskets full of food scraps gathered up afterwards—although I guess he and the disciples had meals supplied for many days after that! But was food for the disciples the main point of having left-over food? I would suggest not, as Jesus had every opportunity to privately create other ways to make sure they were fed. This was a public display for a public lesson and thus a lesson for us. 

One of the biggest problems with glory and honour in our world, is that we understand it in a way that makes us think of it in terms of scarcity. Thus we think of it in terms of competing with others for it. We think if one has something then another person misses out. We think of things in a ‘limited supply’ mentality and perspective. We think that if we have 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and one person eats one loaf and 1 fish that we have only 4 loaves and 1 fish left. But Jesus shows that if he starts with 5 loaves and 2 fish and someone eats 1 loaf and 1 fish that nothing of those loaves and fish haven’t been used up at all, in fact with Jesus when over 5000 people eat not just a loaf and a fish each as a snack but keep eating till they are filled, there are 12 baskets of scraps left over, which were more than they started with. 

Scarcity is not an issue. Abundance is reality. The specific numbers don’t determine how many people are filled, but who is willing to respond and receive. The reality of the provision is not in how many receive it, but that it is abundantly available for all. 

We don’t have to fight or compete for glory. We don’t have to fear if someone else has it, we don’t, or if someone has more public recognition, that we have less value. In God’s Kingdom through Christ there is enough glory and honour for all. All God’s children have equal honour value in Christ. 

It’s a bit like a candle flame. One small flame that can light a massive fire or an infinite number of candles. If I light 53 candles from a small flame, it doesn’t mean that flame can only light 53 candles. It can light an infinite number of candles even though only 53 were lit. We don’t have to fear that if we see someone else light their candle that we won’t be able to light ours. Restored honour in Christ is not on the terms of mis-placed honour from finite human beings, it is on a scale that is based not on our analysis and calculations but on the One who is infinite and divine. 

This is not merely an interesting story about 5000+ people satisfying their physical hunger one day on a hillside. 

This is a miracle that teaches us about the reason Jesus came — to turn upside down the world’s honour priorities and bring restored glory of abundant life for spiritual hunger in unlimited availability in ways and mechanisms we cannot fathom and least expect, but can partake of and know are thoroughly real. 

Let us think deeply on this ‘greatest miracle’ and learn from it in ways that cause us to give even more glory to God for his gift to us of Jesus.

From the Tiny to the Tall - more animals in the African bush

As our time in Africa nears towards a close, another thing we enjoying some more game park drives. We will miss the African bush which is always ready to give new and unexpected experiences.  We recently took another visit to the two tiny local game reserves. Neither have the big cats, but still there are wonderful sights to behold…even though they can never all be captured on camera. Sometimes I can even have the camera positioned and about to ‘click’ and the animal or bird suddenly moves!…

But here are some of the moments I managed to capture. When you drive around a Game Reserve you never know what you might see. Sometimes, like on our recent two drives, you can drive for ages and see nothing or very little but you never know what is around the next bend or behind the next tree…and this time of year with the softer winter sunlight, each experience seemed to have special beauty to it. 

 Our first experience that time was ‘just another wharthog’…but this guy was a really good specimen, with two rather impressive tusks!, and with a hitch-hiker bird on his back. And its not often you can get a photo this clear and looking right at the camera!

Toward the end of that drive we also spotted a few other warthogs in the marshy grass, nose-to-nose and busy discovering some kind of tasty morsels in the mud.

Then it was ostriches that were our next view - these large flightless birds of a small brain and long neck, whose large egg shells are prize souvenirs, and feathers provide many effective feather dusters across the region’s homes, are fascinating in their peculiarliness. 

Then we had a completely new experience of seeing a group of these smaller Spotted Dikkop birds about 40cm tall, that freeze like statues and stay mainly on the ground. They are nocturnal, well camouflaged, and can live up to 20 years. 

This one was standing motionless on one leg for ages.

And this one nearby was also motionless in this position for ages too. 

The next drive also included mostly birds, including probably the most hornbills that we have ever seen in any one drive…

And then a goose just resting by a small dam.

And a beautiful tiny butterfly perfectly positioned in the sun, warming itself on a thorn tree branch

But just when it seemed like that was all we were going to see…

...suddening around a bend we spotted some zebras - two mothers and their foals. But unfortunately they quickly ran off into the thick bush and I couldn’t get a photo. 

However, after another long period of ‘zero’ animals, there was another bend in the road, and WOW…three Rhinos! (Two adults and a youngster). They too started off into the bush, but I did get to zoom in with a photo of the second adult who paused slightly before disappearing completely also into the bush.

I was amazed again at just how big these creatures are!

Then as a final ‘icing on the cake’ we were able to enjoy the young version of the tallest animal - the giraffe, when we spotted a couple of young ones behind some trees, but they were playing ‘hard to photograph'.

But after some quiet patient waiting till they moved a little bit, we were finally able to see them more clearly.

God’s creatures on the African continent never cease to cause us to be in awe of our Creator and His magnificent creation. What an wonderful privilege and opportunity we have had to enjoy them as much as we have.