Coming in, going out
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside still waters. Psalm 23:2
Read John 10:7—10
Coming in, going out. Coming in, going out. I love that easy language. There’s something very trusting about sheep that have found the shepherd they can really trust, who has their own welfare at heart. In Jesus I have this secure freedom. It is a good thought to have with me, to recollect who I am, whose I am, at the end of a day in which I may have forgotten it. At day’s end is when the sheep would come in under the shepherd’s command. Let me do that. Let me come in, via the gate, via my shepherd standing there, ushering me in. If I’ve followed some track I should not have gone down, let me admit it. If I have picked up some foreign object sticking to me, let him brush it off me. If I have listened to someone, anyone at all who I thought had something better to say to me than he, let me now declare it for what it was. It was wayward. It was not life. He is my life.
Prayer
Good shepherd, you have been faithful to your Father’s purpose. You have been faithful to me, to meet me in my need, to save me from what steals and kills and destroys. You have my safety at heart, my security as your goal, my life as your joy and pleasure. I thank you that I can finish the day with you, restored from whatever has threatened it, that I can be refreshed in you, and be prepared to go out tomorrow under your watchful eye, you my shepherd, I your sheep, but also your friend.[1]
[1] John 15:15