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mother worry about him? This is my own fear talking. I find it impossible to stop worrying about my own children so far from home, though they are adults. I am no less worried about them now than when they were riding their tricycles in front of our house.
    I notice that these sheep aren’t wandering aimlessly. The shepherd seems to know where he is taking them. But why is he dragging them through such worthless pastureland with nothing to feed on except rocks? The sheep do have their heads down, as if grazing on something, but when I look down at the ground around my feet, all I see are a few scattered tufts of coarse grass growing among the rocks and dirt. Are you kidding me? The shepherd has led them all the way out here for this? These scraggly weeds will nourish them?
    I’ve always pictured David’s sheep feeding in a lush green meadow near a cool, babbling brook while he sat beneath a tree strumming his harp. But this shepherd, leading his flock through inhospitable terrain, is the true picture Jesus painted for us when He said, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me . . . and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14–15). The reality of life as His disciple, as one of “the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3), is a life of complete helplessness in a harsh environment, trusting the shepherd to lead us and feed us.
    I admit that it’s hard for me to follow the Good Shepherd when the terrain is dry and the path is steep and rough. It’s even harder to watch my children follow Him on their own wilderness journeys, as all of them have this past year. Why would He take them through the valley of the shadow of death?
    Maybe it’s because the Good Shepherd, like this shepherd boy, knows where to find food for His sheep. “Which of you,” Jesus asks, “if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:9). A loving parent doesn’t pass out rocks at the dinner table, yet sometimes the portion God hands us looks an awful lot like a stone—hard and unnourishing. Or like these sparse, unappetizing weeds. We have to trust that it isn’t. We may have to search carefully and endure a long, hot desert walk, but the food that the Shepherd leads us to and the lessons we learn on our rugged walk will nourish and strengthen us for the road ahead.
    Even the Good Shepherd himself “was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted.” When Jesus grew hungry, Satan mocked Him saying, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread” (Matthew 4:1, 3). In other words, take the easy way out, think of your own needs, find greener pastures than where God is leading you. It’s so easy for us to believe that lie, to trust our eyes and not God, to forget that the long, hard way of the cross is the way to eternal life.
    As the boy and his sorry-looking sheep move on to the next hill, I notice that there are a lot of places where the sheep could wander and become lost among the rocks. I’m guessing the boy would be in trouble if he arrived home with one of his father’s sheep missing. In an open area without boundaries or fences, how does the shepherd manage to keep his flock together? That’s one of the things I worry about the most, living as we do in a culture that no longer recognizes moral or ethical barriers. What will prevent my children from wandering off and becoming lost? Jesus answers my fear by explaining what the Good Shepherd promises to do: “Doeshe not leave the ninety-nine . . . and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4).
    On the night of the Last Supper, as Jesus was about to return to His Father, He gave an account of His little flock. “While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe. . . . None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled” (John 17:12). Jesus also promised that all of His sheep, including my children, would return safely home to the fold: “My