The Tenderness of Our Shepherd

Ewe and lamb, Dall sheep, Denali National Park, Alaska

"O trembling heart, look away, and look up! Your sorrows have been multiplied indeed, by looking at difficulties and second causes. Now cease from all this. Talk no more about the walled cities and giants; about the rugged paths and dark valleys; about lions and robbers. But think of the love, the might, and the wisdom, of the Shepherd. Love that spared not its blood! Might that made the worlds! Wisdom that named the stars! Your salvation does not depend on what you are, but on what He is. For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ. Cease using the first pronoun, and substitute for it the third....

"He has a shepherd’s tenderness; no lamb so tiny that He will not carry it; no saint so weak that He will not gently lead; no soul so faint that He will not give it rest. He pities as a father. He comforts as a mother. His gentleness makes great. He covers us with His feathers, soft and warm and downy; and under His wings do we trust" (F.B. Meyer, The Shepherd Psalm).