My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year | Page 6

SHEPHERDS
EZEKIEL xxxiv. 1-10.
This word of the Lord puts before me the unlovely lineaments of the false shepherds.
They are self-seeking. They "feed themselves," but they "feed not the flock." They take up religion for what they can make out of it! It is a carnal ambition, not a holy service. It is used for getting, not for giving, for self-glorification and not for self-sacrifice. It is selfishness masquerading as holiness, the thief in the garb of the shepherd.
And, therefore, the false shepherds are devoid of sympathy. "The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick." Selfishness always tends to benumbment. Humaneness is fostered by sacrifice. Our sympathetic chords are kept refined by chivalrous deeds. Drop the deeds and all our refinements begin to coarsen, and we make no response to our brother's cries of need and pain.
And because there is no sympathy there is no quest. "My sheep wandered ... and none did seek after them." How can we seek them if we have never missed them, if we have no sense that they are lost? Our Lord came in travail of soul to "seek that which was lost." And I must share His travail if I would share in the search.

JANUARY The Nineteenth
THE LOST SHEEP
EZEKIEL xxxiv. 11-19.
And now, again, I am bidden to contemplate the gracious ministries of the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd searches the "far country" for His lost sheep. "I will bring them ... out of all places where they have been scattered." He goes into the hard wilderness of cold indifference, and wasteful pride, and desolating sin, searching "high and low" for His foolish sheep. And no place is unvisited by the Great Seeker! Every perilous ravine, where a sheep can be lost, knows the footprints of the Shepherd. And He knows my far-country, and He is seeking me!
And the Good Shepherd brings His wandering sheep back home. "I will bring them ... to their own land." We return from the land of pride to the home of lowliness, from hard indifference to gracious sympathy, from the barrenness of sin to the beauty of holiness. We come back to God's beautiful "lily-land" of eternal light and peace.
And what nutriment the Good Shepherd provides for the home-coming sheep! "I will feed them in a good pasture." Our wasted powers shall be renewed and strengthened by the fattening diet of grace. Love shall be both host and meat! "He will satisfy thy mouth with good things."

JANUARY The Twentieth
THE PASSING OF THE BEAST
EZEKIEL xxxiv. 23-31.
When the Good Shepherd has charge of His flock "the wild beasts will cease out of the land." All beastly passions shall be destroyed. The fair gardens of our souls shall no longer be ravaged by sleek pride, or fierce appetite, or ravenous lust. "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet."
And the forces of nature shall be in friendly co-operation. "I will cause the shower to come down in his season." We are to have mystic allies in sky and field. Nature sides with the man who sides with God. Our very garden becomes our helpmeet when we are cultivating the fruits of the Spirit. The heavens assume a friendly aspect when we are "marching to beautiful Zion." But when we are against the Lord all these forces appear to be hostile. "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera."
And we are to have a joyful assurance of the companionship of our God. "This shall they know, that I, the Lord their God, am with them." And in that precious assurance every other treasure is found! Only be sure of that, and we shall walk about as kings and queens!

JANUARY the Twenty-first
THE VALUE OF ONE SOUL
MATTHEW xviii. 7-14.
What an infinite value the Lord attaches to one soul! "And one of them be gone astray!" I thought He might never have missed the one! And yet the Eastern shepherd says that out of his great flock he can miss the individual face. A face is missing, as though a child were absent from the family circle. When a soul is wandering in the far country there is an awful gap in the Father's house! Is thy place empty? Is mine?
And mark the pangs of the Shepherd's quest. He "goeth into the mountain and seeketh!" The Eastern shepherd goes out in tempest, and in rocky ravine, or in thorny scrub that tears the hands and feet, he seeks and finds his sheep. And my Lord sought me, in stony and thorny places, in the darkness of Gethsemane, and in the awful desolations of The Hill.
And the Shepherd found His sheep, and He returns across the hills singing the song of the triumph of grace--
"And up from the mountains, thunder-riven, And