The Shepherd Psalm: A Meditation

by William Evans

A friend tells us that while in the Orient he visited a Syrian shepherd. He observed that every morning the shepherd carried food to the sheepfold. On inquiry he found that he was taking it to a sick sheep. The next morning the friend accompanied the shepherd and saw in the sheepfold a sheep with a broken leg. The friend asked the shepherd how the accident happened. Was it struck by a stone? Did it fall into a hole? Did a dog bite it? How was the limb injured? The shepherd replied, "No, I broke it myself."

In amazement the friend replied, "What, you broke it! Why did you do that?"

The shepherd then told him how wayward this sheep had been, how it had led others astray, and how difficult it had been to come near it. It was necessary that something should be done to preserve the life of this particular member of the flock, and also to prevent it from leading other sheep astray. The shepherd therefore broke its leg and reset it. This breakage necessitated the sheep's lying down for a week or more. During that time it was compelled to take food from the hand of the shepherd. Thus had the compulsion of lying down cured the wandering and wayward disposition of the sheep.

It is said that when a sheep will not follow the shepherd he takes up the lamb in his arms—and then the mother follows.

So it sometimes happens with the children of God. Our Great Shepherd has to lay us aside, put us on our backs, perhaps, for a while in order that we may look up into His face and learn needed lessons. A little girl lay dying. She looked up into the face of her father, who years before had been a very active church worker, but on account of business prosperity had drifted away from Christian moorings, and said, "Papa, if you were as good as you used to be, do you think I would have to die?" God was making this man to "lie down," do you see?

A deacon in a Baptist church told me this story. When first married, he and his wife observed family prayers every day. This worshipful spirit continued for some years after their first child was born; then gradually the father became so engrossed in business that the family altar, Bible reading and prayer were gradually neglected and finally altogether dispensed with. One day, on coming home from the office, the deacon found his nine-year-old girl very ill with a fever. For weeks they watched over her, but finally the angel of death took her home. As the deacon told me this story, the tears filling his eyes, he said, "Then I knew that my daughter had been taken for my sake and that God was making me to 'lie down.' From that day until this, which is over a quarter of a century, the family altar has been maintained in our home."

Mother, in that sweetest of all hours to a mother, the last hour of the day when the child is being put to sleep, when the last thing its eyes rest upon is the face of the mother, does its last vision rest on a mother who has taught it to pray, to love Jesus? It would be infinitely better that the heavenly Father take that little child to be with Himself than that it should go out into the world from a godless, Christless, prayerless home.

Fathers and mothers, are we taking time to "lie down," to be alone with God in prayer and the reading of His Word? Has the family altar in your home been neglected? What are you waiting for? Do you want God to come and lay His hand upon some precious one in your family circle to take to be with Himself? Would you then take time to "lie down"?

It is said that when a sheep is wayward and will not cross the brook, the shepherd finds that by taking the little lamb from it and carrying it across, the mother sheep will at once follow, rushing over the stream. Fathers and mothers, are you waiting for God to do this? Our fathers and mothers used to have the family altar. They took time to read the Bible and pray with their children. What kind of age will the next be if we neglect these religious privileges? It may be that our parents were not the scholars that some of their children are, but I think we may safely say that they were the saints that we never will be until we "lie down" in the green pastures and quiet waters of God's Word and prayer as they did.

Christian workers especially need to learn the lesson of "lying down," We are restless; we fume and worry and fret because we are tired and hungry. We do not take time to "lie down." Strange, is it not, that we will do almost anything but lie down? We will walk, run, climb, sing, preach, teach—do anything but "lie down." Let us not forget that the secret of power lies in being alone with God. Christ drew the multitudes to Him because He withdrew from them at times. The drawing preacher is the withdrawing man. Significant are the words of Jesus to His active disciples: "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while."