to lose everything. I mean e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Health. Savings. Job. Home. Reputation. Spouse. Kids, adult kids, grandkids. Various means could do it, but imagine the worst. Living under a bridge, homeless, alone. Or in prison for life. Or a padded cell in an institution. Immediate family and extended family all dead, or say, hopelessly estranged, somehow, just or unjust. The how/way is not the point. Imagine it.
Would Jesus be enough for me? Or would I be so devastated, so crushed, I would be tempted to take my life — no more reason to live? A shepherd-believer could not continue. But a dumb-sheep-believer, while seriously grieving the unfathomable loss…would still be enjoying his Shepherd, probably more than ever, probably more dependent than ever, probably with more-singular focus than ever. This is the kind of contagious faith/dependency we hear about among persecuted believers under oppressive governments around the world. Dumb-sheep-believers. Jesus-dependents. We don’t envy them, but we envy their dependency/faith/contentment. They pray for us, the pitiable, here in the States. We imagine them miserable, but we shepherd-believers are the miserable.
Impossible to be a dumb-sheep-believer, unless the Shepherd’s Spirit freshly convicts me of the sin of independence. And it doesn’t last long. So natural to be a shepherd-believer, living by the values of the right-side-up kingdom of this world – outside the Church, and inside the Church, joyless and peaceless unless things go my way, momentarily. We shepherd-believers knows what’s best — wise in our own eyes, leaning on our own understanding. Fruitless. Uncontagious.
–DumbSheepDave, astonished at the difference Jesus is making in 2014, at times, hoping the pre-believers around him are noticing the difference
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