Two hours. For two hours this little lamb was separated from the flock. He was scared, I was frustrated, and his mother was desperate to reunite with her lamb. She did not understand why she could see and touch him through the fence, but for some reason he could not follow her. At this age, the little twin could have been napping, or he could have been too busy exploring his new surroundings to notice that his mother and sister had moved out of the temporary holding area, and into the bigger, permanent pasture. No matter how hard I tried, I could not make him acknowledge, much less walk through, the narrow gate that led to freedom. Finally, after more than an hour and a half of waiting, the ewe called to her lamb once more, then she turned and slowly walked towards the rest of sheep that were grazing about 50 yards away.
“Why can you not see the gate? Just walk through it!” The frustration of watching the little renegade stand at the open door but not walk through it was bad, but watching him run wide open away from the gate to the opposite end of the enclosure was worse. As I walked down the fence line for the fiftieth time, this scripture came to mind:
Matthew 7:13-14 (NKJV)
Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
As frustrating as it was watch this lamb ignore this narrow gate, how much more heartbreaking is it for us to see our friends and family ignore the narrow gate that leads to eternal salvation? How much more devastating is it to see those we love seemingly run “wide open” away from God? This lamb is oblivious to the open door that is his only way to freedom, but think about how many people never realize that Jesus is the Door that we must walk through to have everlasting life.
John 10:
7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep
9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
Isn’t it amazing how God speaks not only figuratively, but in this case literally to us through His Word? So how did this exhausting saga end? Another sheep who has twins of her own, came back through the gate to show this lost little lamb the way to freedom. All it took for this lamb to be saved was for someone to show him the way to salvation. This sheep demonstrated a couple of things that we often miss as Christians.
- We cannot “force” our loved ones to be saved, and sometimes we drive them away with our good intentions.
- Sometimes we have to meet people where they are, rather than expecting them to come to us.
- We need to look for the opportunity to show others the narrow way, but understand that they have to find the Door themselves.
It was amazing to watch as the exhausted little lamb ran right to the ewe who came to his rescue. He stuck close by her side, literally leaning against her body, as he calmly, without hesitancy, walked through the narrow gate into the pasture.
My prayer for all of us is that when we see the opportunity to lead a stray lamb through the Door that is Christ, that we take it!
