Sheep Mentality

What do you think of when you hear the word sheep? Do you think "Wow, they're so smart", or "Those are such independant individuals"... 
It's more likely that we think of how dumb sheep are. Here's the thing, they travel in a herd or they get hopelessly lost wandering resulting in them becoming a yummy snack for a predator. Then there's the problem of when they actually stay with their herd...If Susan the Sheep goes bounding off a cliff then Steven the Sheep happily bounds off the cliff right after. They have a Sheep Mentality that makes them follow the leader. I recall years ago seeing a video on youtube or facebook where there was a log sitting in the way of where the sheep were being herded. The sheep, one by one, began to hop over the log. Someone proceeded to walk into the midst of this and remove the log. It would make sense for the sheep to be thankful and proceed walking as if that log had never been there, but the thing is, the sheep continued to bounce over the spot where the log once sat! Because Susan and Stephen had bounced over that log, Samantha and Shane the sheep bounced right over the empty plot of grass where the log had once sat! 

How absolutely ridiculous! Thank the good Lord that I was born a super smart and incredibly wise human being! We are absolutly the pinnacle of amazingness right? ... Yet then we see this scripture verse ... 

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all that I need”

Psalm 23:1

In fact, we see a multitude of times throughout scripture that God is called our Shepherd and we are referred to as His sheep. (John 10:14, Heb 13:20, 1 Pet 2:25, Gen 48:15, Psalm 80:1, Isa 40:11). Please understand, I don't believe humans are dumb or unwise. What I DO believe is that we are HUMAN. We tend to make mistakes, stick our feet in our mouth, and run after what will make us feel good. We strive to better our lives and hopefully the lives of those around us. Unfortunately, we tend to have that annoying Sheep Mentality from time to time. We think there is something more that is out there that will make us happy or take care of all our problems. We turn to the next new trend that society promises will fix our problems. Psalm 23 kicks off by saying that with The Shepherd in our life, we will have all that we need. No, all our problems are not magically fixed. We will still experience sickness, unemployment, family issues, etc. But, we can know that The Shepherd is always with us, he knows us, and he will provide for us. He has our best interests in mind even when we don't even know what our best interests are. He will never leave us or forsake us and he will bring us home when we wander off.

I am SO thankful to be a sheep ba ba ba baaaa.