The following is an imaginative prayer from the perspective of a humble shepherd:
It's another quiet, cold night in the shepherding fields. I have been at this post for so long, sometimes I take for granted the mundane ordinariness of my life. Every day is the same: opening the gates, taking care and watch of my sheep, guiding and protecting them. This was my destiny for generations. My father, my father's father, my father's father's father were all shepherds, and so shall I be. I don't mind the mundane. I just have to think, is this it? Is what I'm doing in life enough? Should there be higher aspirations?
And then all of sudden, on this night, after lovingly caring for my sheep and keeping watch over them, the brightest light I've ever encountered appeared. I have never known fear like this. Something has gripped my soul and my heart and whispered, "this will be different than any other night." The tallest being I had ever seen stood in front of me and my fellow shepherds. Sensing our fear, the being immediately proclaimed PEACE and JOY into our hearts. What the angel then proclaimed was astonishing. The long-awaited Messiah is here? Was born this very night? The Messiah came as a baby? Before I even had time to process, I then heard the sweetest melody I had ever heard. It sounded like a thousand voices all beautifully harmonizing and blending together, "Glory to God in the highest…."
Immediately after the song was over, I knew that my ordinary life had just changed forever. What if I wasn't at my shepherding post tonight? What if I had let the ordinariness of my life consume me to the point of leaving the position the Lord had given me? It was in this moment I knew I had to travel to Bethlehem to see what the angel of the Lord was speaking about.
We went as fast as we could and behold, we found a young couple with a baby lying in a manger, wrapped in cloths, exactly as the angel said we would. Excitedly, we had to tell these new parents all about the message we just witnessed. I knew to the depths of my heart that this child was the One we had been waiting for. Now I know that the Lord has blessed us and kept us. He has let His face shine on us and has been gracious to us. He has looked kindly on us and has given us His peace: His very self. And nothing about my mundane, ordinary life would be the same.
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