A sheep in the care of my Shepherd

Sheep have a reputation for being among the least intelligent of animals. Now, perhaps they're not as unintelligent as they seem (check out this article), but they're certainly not bright. They definitely aren't anywhere near as smart as humans.
Sheep stick together in a herd, and what one sheep does, the others generally do. They do have a tendency to wander off alone, and aren't always good at recognizing danger. However, they can remember fellow sheep and a few human faces (see the article linked above). When a sheep has one shepherd for its whole life, it learns to recognize the voice of that shepherd (see this for a bit more on that).

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The Bible often compares God to a shepherd, and his people to sheep. This was a familiar image to people living in both Old and New Testament times. King David himself was a shepherd as a boy (1 Samuel 16:11).
When Jesus was born, some of the first people to see him were shepherds (Luke 2:15-16).

Israel (Jacob) called God his shepherd. In blessing his son Joseph, he said "May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm--may he bless these boys." (Genesis 28:15-16)
Moses compared God's people to sheep: "Moses said to the Lord, 'May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all mankind, appoint a man over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord's people will not be like sheep without a shepherd'" (Numbers 27:15-17). (Joshua became that shepherd for God's people.)

The Psalms have many references to God as our shepherd, which makes sense since David wrote many of them.
Psalm 100:3 says, "Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture."
In Psalm 119:176 the psalmist confesses, "I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands."
And of course, the entirety of Psalm 23 is a metaphor for our life as sheep, being led by God, our shepherd. He provides everything we need, he protects us from harm, he corrects us when we stray, he is by our side through the darkest parts of life, and he will bless us to our life's end and beyond.

Several other passages in the Old Testament reference sheep and shepherds. See, for example, Isaiah 40:11 and 53:6-7 and Jeremiah 50:6.

In the New Testament, the best-known passage about sheep and shepherds is found in John 10. Not only does Jesus call himself the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep, but he is the gate to the sheep pen--the only way into that place of safety and rest. Anyone who tries to get into the pen any way other than the gate "is a thief and a robber." (See verses 1-2, 11, 14-15 especially.)
(For other New Testament references to God as our shepherd and us as his sheep, see Matthew 2:6, 9:36, Hebrews 13:20, 1 Peter 2:25, 5:2-4, Revelation 7:17.)

Perhaps being compared to sheep isn't the most flattering comparison. But if you think about it from a spiritual standpoint, it makes sense. Without God's direction (especially through the words of Scripture) we wouldn't know where to go and what we should and shouldn't do. Without his voice calling us to follow him, we would easily be led astray by other distractions around us. (We often are distracted as it is!) God provides everything we need, protects us from harm and evil, and loves us as his children. We might not even know when we're in danger because as our shepherd, God keeps those evil things away from us.

He calls us by name, just as shepherds call their sheep. He knows all our faults and still loves us and cares for us. And when faced with the ultimate adversary--Satan--he gladly laid down his life so that we could live.

When I consider all that, being a sheep isn't so bad after all. I'll readily admit that I'm not always very bright. I make some really stupid decisions, and I often get distracted away from my Shepherd's voice. But he's always there to bring me back to the fold, to heal my wounds, and to remind me how much he loves me.

Now, on a rather humorous note... check out this video!

A Glimpse into the American Justice System

This post is first in a three-part miniseries based on my jury duty experience.
See part two here
and part three here. 

As many of you know, I just had the opportunity to serve as a juror... for two. full. weeks.

It was intense.

The case was involving two semi trucks that crashed just outside the town I live in, in August 2010.
It was a rear-end crash: an underride from the perspective of the back truck, and the man in the back truck died. You don't need to know the details; it's not fun.

The charges were two: one, that the driver in the front truck, Mr. Kozlov, had driven below the posted legal speed limit (on Interstate 80 in Nebraska, the lowest legal speed is 40 mph), specifically, that he had been driving 13.5 mph at the time of the collision and had therefore been responsible for the death of the other man (manslaughter, murder without the intention of doing so);
and two, that Mr. Kozlov had intentionally given misleading information in his statements to law enforcement officers regarding the speed he had been going (he maintained for three years that he had been driving 60-65 mph). This is known as false reporting.

After two weeks of hearing the testimonies of witness after witness, watching the lawyers for the defense and prosecution do everything they could to make the facts fit what they wanted the jurors to believe, we were presented with the evidence and told to make a decision.

It was a complicated process, but suffice it to say that we did not have enough trustworthy information to prove him guilty of manslaughter.
We did decide that he was guilty of false reporting.

I gained a great respect for what judges and lawyers do, and especially for what juries are expected to do. It's not an easy thing. What we kept coming back to was the fact that Mr. Kozlov was "innocent until proven guilty" "beyond all reasonable doubt." There was plenty of reason to doubt that he was guilty. We just didn't have enough trustworthy information to declare him guilty of manslaughter, specifically, of breaking the law and driving too slow. No one saw it. No one could satisfactorily prove it.

We declared him innocent.

I'll get to the spiritual implications of this in another post. And I have another story to tell, too.

But right now I'm reflecting on the incredibly difficult jobs that judges, lawyers, and jurors have. Judges have to correctly apply the law during court cases. They have to really know their stuff, remain neutral about a situation, and then decide consequences based on a jury's decision.

Lawyers have to do everything in their power to prove their side of things, whether they're the defense or prosecution. I will say that I don't like lawyers very much, as much as I know there are plenty of lawyers out there who are good and decent people. But it's part of a lawyer's job to be a jerk in the courtroom. You can't be kind if you're trying to force the truth out of people. Plus, lawyers never swear to tell the truth. They can say whatever they want to try to sway the jury to their point of view. It's not a job I'd want, for sure.

I definitely have the most respect for jurors. They aren't trained in law, but they're expected to correctly apply what they've been told about the law. They're given a ton of information and told to decide, based on the facts they have, whether a person is guilty or innocent. And they're not the ones being paid several hundred dollars an hour. We got paid $35 a day (and I'm not complaining; it's about as much as I would have made working part-time at the library for those two weeks). But in my opinion, we had the hardest job of anybody. We were told that as a group of twelve people, we had to come to a unanimous decision. It was an amazing group of people that I worked with, but we didn't all think the same way by any means. We weren't all 100% thrilled with the way things turned out. I'm quite pleased about the not-guilty verdict for the manslaughter, but I wasn't entirely convinced that the man also committed the false reporting. But a few people weren't entirely convinced that he hadn't driven below the speed limit, either. What we were able to do was say, "you know what, I'm convinced enough. It's not that I have no doubt whatsoever, but we have to make a decision based in reasonable doubt." And that's what we did.

One of the jurors made an interesting comment at one point. He said something like, "Whatever decision we make regarding this man, he will have to face a much bigger judgment one day. If it turns out that he's not innocent, he'll have that on his own conscience, and he will have to answer for himself someday, to a much more important Judge than we are."

I take comfort in that. We made the best decision we could with the knowledge we were given. And the rest? It's up to God.


Have you ever served on a jury? What was your experience like?

Stay tuned...I have more stories to share from my jury duty experience!