The shepherd had work in many ways like your work, yet he worked with sheep. But like David, you can look all around and see your world, even your small corner, as full of God.

God filled his world with props — with trees and eagles and mountains and fish and men — to reveal not just his creativity and power, but himself.

One of the most bewildering parables he conceived (before hills ever held them) is that of the shepherd and his sheep. Consider sheep — the most mentioned animal in the Bible. What are their virtues? Their fur is warm in the winter, and they are tasty in a gyro — but they have little more to show for themselves. They are not known for their strength, intelligence, speed, or beauty. They are not exotic like the tiger, awesome like the eagle, useful like the ox, crafty like the serpent, fearless like the warhorse, or kingly like the lion — they are just sheep.

No one desires to be known by a sheep’s characteristics. If you want to call someone timid, fretful, nervous, you call him sheepish. Sheep are also known for their stubbornness — a flock of teenagers who seem to always know better than the one leading them. They grumble by the shepherd’s side, texting their friends about him, wandering away from the only one there to keep them fed and sustain their lives. As one scholar summarizes, “Sheep are not only dependent creatures; they are also singularly unintelligent, prone to wandering and unable to find their way to a sheepfold even when it is within sight” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 782).

Idyllic Hillsides

Instead of leaving sheep to their dumb determination to go extinct, God supplies men to meet their constant need for guidance and protection. Enter the shepherd — boys and men dedicated to caring for these creatures. We have seen so many images and sung so many songs of shepherds that we may visualize something rather romantic. We imagine serene oil paintings of distant hills depicting the simple life. But does the shepherd within the frame feel his life is rather like watching paint dry? Wouldn’t you wonder, if you were in his place, Is this really it?

Would you spend your life as the friend of sheep? The solitude. The quiet. Yet the demands. The seeking of pasture. The surveying for predators. Many days the same. Strengthening, guiding, bandaging, rescuing those who speak not, help not, fight not, thank not. And they stray — how often they stray. You are a pastor, but you watch not for souls — immortal and more precious than the world — you watch sheep. You care for kids, but they are not your children. If it was easy enough for Satan to sell the idea that stay-at-home motherhood is drudgery itself, how much convincing would stay-on-the-hill shepherding need?

But at least we would be closer to God, right? Psalm 23 is so worshipful; shepherding seems the apex of the devotional life. No dinging, buzzing, rushing. No city smog clouding the heavens from our view. Yet how well did Alexander Maclaren challenge how near these hillsides are to heaven.

We can feel, in a kind of lazy play of sentiment, the fitness of the shepherd’s life to suggest thoughts of God — because it is not our life. But it needs both a meditative habit and a devout heart to feel that the trivialities of our own daily tasks speak to us of Him. The heavens touch the earth on the horizon of our vision, but it always seems furthest to the sky from the spot where we stand. (The Life of David as Reflected in His Psalms, 21)

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