Story From Europe #1 - Stupid Sheep

One morning while working at the France YFC Training Center in Sandernach, I noticed a neighbor's sheep eating some grass on the other side of the fence. The unfortunate animal however, had put his head through an opening in the fence and now couldn't retract his head. The sheep struggled to withdraw his woolly head, even jumping in the air trying to get loose. Soon he was baaing in misery. He was stuck. And why was he stuck? It wasn't like there wasn't plenty of grass inside the pasture. For some reason this sheep thought the grass was greener on the other side of the fence. Then it struck me! We're like the sheep. In fact the Scriptures say, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;"-Isaiah 53:6a
We have this disease or sickness called sin, that makes us think we know better than the Lord and the boundaries that He has established for us. So we get stuck and mired in sin.
After watching the sheep try and try to get loose, I got Jerry Wheeler and Judy Thorn to help me free the sheep from his dilemma. We were able to calm the sheep and cut one of the plastic cords (yes this fence was made of plastic!) to release the sheep. The sheep was free and ran off to join the rest of the flock. As we helped "rescue" the sheep, that reminded me of what God promises to do for us. The second part of Isiah 53:6 says, " and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Our tendency to go for what we think is greener grass gets us into a jam which Jesus will rescue us from! The promise found in Isaiah tells us that a Savior will free us from the fences we get stuck in. What a gift found in the person of Jesus Christ. May this story help you to renew your faith in Him. If you're stuck in a fence, call (baa) on His name. Then you'll be free to run around with His people and feed on His pasture.
These are the days my friend,
Jim "Train"