The image of the Good Shepherd is a universal favorite. Who doesn't love the very idea of Christ, the Shepherd, leaving everything behind to come after His lost sheep? There are few more comforting thoughts than this. Jesus will always come after us; we're never too far away, never too precariously perched, never too small or insignificant or wayward.
Jesus is every single person's own Good Shepherd.
But, you know what? Not only is the Shepherd still (and always!) walking His fields gathering in His lost sheep, but in a world that seems to be increasingly worldly, and less concerned about the salvation of souls than ever, I've had a chance to see that folks are also still looking for Him.
In April, 2010, I enjoyed finding and highlighting many of the images of the Good Shepherd in art. And in the three years since, this single post has received 34,363 page views altogether -- including ninety-two in the just the last fourteen days. Isn't that AMAZING?! And comforting? I mean, really! This is just my lost-in-the-corner little blog we're talking about here, which represents only a fraction of all the people who've searched the internet for images of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. And those who've taken the trouble to search out this image from the whole of the internet represents just a fraction of those folks who've sought Him out personally -- in prayer, or even just in curiosity, a call for Him to come find them (whether they know it or not).
Don't you love that?
No doubt about it, the devil is very busy today in the world and very much so in the mass media -- where he's thriving on the internet. But Christ is here, too, looking for His sheep, though they may think they're the ones looking for Him.
And that comforts me very much, indeed.
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