How can we follow if we can't hear?

"The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice." (John 10:3-5)

This is an amazing passage.  Here Jesus is discussing how His sheep know His voice and can follow Him.  I want to be able to hear the voice of the shepherd.

Jesus’ listeners would have understood this immediately because shepherds were a part of their everyday lives.  They knew that the way shepherds would lead their sheep was by walking in front of them and calling them along.  Sheep could recognize their shepherds voices extremely well. In fact, when a few shepherds would come together to talk or hang out their sheep would intermingle.  To separate their sheep the shepherds would stand in different places and call to their sheep and the sheep would divide and each one would go to their receptive shepherds.  How amazing!

Sheep could follow their shepherd because they knew his voice.  And if we want to follow our shepherd then we must listen to His voice.  This causes us to ask a simple question:

How can we follow if we can’t hear?

If we are not listening to Jesus and becoming more intimate with Jesus then we will never be able to follow Jesus.  This idea is very similar to this post because our affections for God should drive our ambitions in the same way that our hearing leads to our following.

May our ambitions never be greater than our affections, and may our following always come from our hearing.

How can we follow if we can’t hear?

Devlin McGuire
Venture Corps Chaplain

devlinmcguire.blogspot.com