A Christian need never feel harassed, nor experience helplessness. Never.
Why?
Because a Christian is never without a shepherd.
Life is full of harassed-inspiring challenges and busy-ness, and helplessness-inducing events and unknowns. It’s what Jesus noticed about people as he travelled round, preaching and healing; it’s what aroused his compassion for them:
“He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9 v 36)
If you don’t have a “shepherd”—someone to rely on who is in control, who knows what they are doing, and cares about you as their own possession—then you’re going to know the feeling of being harassed and helpless, because you’re thrown back on your own abilities, and life is so often too big or confusing for our minds and strength to handle. If you don’t have a shepherd, you will be harassed and helpless.
And so Jesus gave his famous command to his disciples—the harvest field is vast, the workers are few, and therefore to pray for workers, and go out as workers (9 v 37 – 10 v 2).
Their message to the harvest field? You can have a shepherd, so that you never need to feel harassed, or be helpless. There is a shepherd who is in charge, who knows what he’s doing, and who cares enough about his sheep to die for them. His name is Jesus, and he wants to be your shepherd.
That’s the most compassionate message I can give anyone else. And it’s the most compassionate message I can remind myself.
When something goes “wrong”; when I’m beginning to worry about something; when I can’t handle something; when life goes out of control; what do I need to remember?
You are not without a shepherd.
I read Matthew 9 v 36 one morning a month ago—I think I’ve said this single line to myself over a hundred times since then. And it’s honestly changed the way I think, and feel, simply to say to myself as I feel harassed or helpless:
You are not without a shepherd.
And, if you know Jesus, neither are you. Maybe there’s something right now about which you need to stop and say to yourself six simple, thought- and feeling-changing words:
You are not without a shepherd.
This blog post was originally posted on The Good Book Blog on September 26th 2013.
Carl is Editorial Director at The Good Book Company and is a member of Grace Church Worcester Park, London. He is the best-selling author of The Garden, the Curtain and the Cross and God's Big Promises Bible Storybook, and also serves as series editor of the God's Word for You series. Before joining TGBC, he worked as a journalist and then as a teacher, and pastored a congregation in Hull. Carl is married to Lizzie, and they have two children. He studied history at Oxford University.