A Shepherd Muses About God’s Providence

by Curtis Shelburne

ALL TAKEN together, it was not that bad a life, the shepherd mused, guiding his sheep toward the well. The work could be hard, but he was not afraid to bend his back. It was honest work, was it not? And the sheep he governed? Well, they were sheep! Leave courage to lions, cunning to tigers, antics to monkeys, and wisdom to owls. Sheep make no great claim to any of those attributes. They were just like any “run of the mill” animal, his shepherd friends might have mused, only more so! More likely to get themselves into the sort of fix it took a wary shepherd to rectify, but more likely to get under your skin with that simple trust they placed in a loving shepherd. More likely to wander off and get lost, but more of a joy to find, too. More likely to need extra attention right at the times you were busiest, but, he figured, maybe more likely to deserve it. No, he didn’t mind taking care of sheep. After all, it had been misguidedly taking care of people, not sheep, that had nearly done him in so many years ago.

It almost seemed now like it had been another lifetime. When he had come here to Midian—it was more accurate to say, when he had run here to Midian—he was running for his life. He’d looked for all the world like the Egyptian prince that he was, the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. But that was a very long time ago.

No one would take him for a prince of Egypt now. He was a shepherd, and he looked the part. He’d traded a scepter for a shepherd’s staff. His only subjects were the sheep under his care. Let other men rule kingdoms; keeping his sheep out of harm’s way was challenge enough for him.

Well, he’d been lost in thought long enough, sitting on a hillock of grass watching his sheep graze. As he stood, it occurred to him that he was content with his life in Midian, that he liked his shepherd’s work and, not least, he liked the time he spent out on the hills far away from others—quiet time, time to think, to ponder, to wonder.

He could live and die a shepherd and that would be fine with him. But he wondered why the God of his fathers had chosen for him such a circuitous route to Midian? Why have him born in a foreign land, a land of slavery in which his first breath might well have been his last? Why have him floated down river in a basket and plucked from the arms of the Nile to become an Egyptian prince? Why let him be chased out of Egypt when his own sense of who he was as a Hebrew flared into deadly force? Surely, Lord, there is a quicker way to put a man in Midian to serve as a shepherd!

No, he didn’t understand the Providence that had guided his life. But he knew that now he was a shepherd, and that was enough. And he knew that the sheep straying over toward the south side of the hill needed his care more than he needed to ponder.

Hmm. Looks like something’s burning behind that hill. I won-der . . . .