My Heart's Cry

More of His Voice in My Ear ; John 10:1-10 ;God told me to tell you that you are supposed to marry me." I received that astonishing bit of information on a lined sheet of notebook paper that had food stains on it when I was fourteen years of age! It was a personal letter to me from some delusional young man that had been forwarded from my father's organization. I remember writing back rather crisply, "Well, He hasn't told me!" ; As amusing as that incident was, a similar attitude was conveyed to me at the beginning of my ministry that was not so humorous. Some church leaders publicly expressed disapproval of my ministry because I was willing to speak when there were men in the audience. And their stand was based on what they said God says. ; A typical argument from one of these men was something like this: "God told me that you as a woman are not to speak to an audience in which there are men. God has also told me women are not to be preachers." ; My initial reaction was the same as it was when I was fourteen: "Well, God hasn't told me!" But because this argument was made by those with seminary degrees and reputations for being spiritual, by godly men who held positions as shepherds in their congregations, this little sheep needed to hear her Shepherd's voice. I did not want to hear what others said He said. I wanted to hear from Him directly. I wanted to hear His voice in the ears of my spirit. ; Do you have a similar dilemma in your life? Have you been confronted with those who, in essence, have said, "God told me to tell you if you only had more faith, you would be healed," or "If God really loved you, that bad thing would not have happened to you," or "It's God's will that your loved one died"? Such "words of knowledge" spoken by sincere people within our circle of Christian friends can put us in a tailspin of emotional devastation and spiritual doubt. It is especially traumatic and confusing when those words are uttered by someone in a position of religious leadership. ; How can you and I know which voice speaks the truth and is therefore authentic? ; The Bible tells us that God does speak to His children and that we will hear and know His voice even as sheep hear and know the voice of their shepherd. ; In Western civilization, the concept of a personal shepherd is relatively meaningless. With hoof-and-mouth disease in the news, we've seen British sheep ranches flashed on the news and sheep pens in Northern Ireland pictured on the front of our morning newspapers. If you live in a rural area, you may have noticed that sheep today graze in carefully fenced-in pastures where they're guarded by specially bred dogs and identified by a number tattooed in their ears. Computers track when they are born and when they are ready for either shearing or slaughter. There is no personal shepherd. Unless the sheep are on a very small farm, even the sheep's owner can't tell one animal from another. ; But the Eastern shepherd was, and in many parts of the world still is, very different. He raised his sheep from the time they were lambs and maintained responsibility for them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, year in and year out, for the sheep's entire lifetime. There were no dogs or fences or tattoos or computers. ; The Eastern shepherd of Jesus' day raised his sheep primarily in the Judean uplands. The countryside was rocky, hilly, and creased with deep crevices and ravines. Patches of grass were sparse. So the shepherd had to establish a personal relationship with each sheep, nurturing its love and trust in him in order to lead it to where the path was the smoothest, the grass was the greenest, the water was the cleanAnne Graham Lotz is the author of 'My Heart's Cry', published 2002 under ISBN 9780849917417 and ISBN 0849917417.