THE TENDER SHEPHERD

I will never forget what the coach said to us the first day I went out for football. He told us it is a rough game and that if we expected to play it, we must also expect sometimes to get hurt.

So with life. If you expect to live it, you must also expect some bruises and hurt. That is just the way it is. And David, thinking of that fact, wrote in the Twenty-third Psalm. “You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.”

Sometimes, as the sheep grazed, its head would be cut by the sharp edge of a stone buried in the grass. There were other potential dangers -- briars to scratch and thorns to stick….

So the shepherd would stand at the door of the fold and examine each sheep as it came in. If there were hurt places the shepherd would apply soothing and healing oil. Instead of becoming infected, the hurt would soon heal….

The Lord is the tender Shepherd who understands the hurt of His children and is ever ready and able to minister to that hurt. 

-- Charles L. Allen in “The Twenty-third Psalm: An Interpretation” 

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