I love the imagery and analogy presented here in this chapter...it is really poetic.  And, it would have been much more impactful to those present than to us...I have never met or even seen an actual shepherd in my life; I am guessing the same is true for you as well.  But, in contrast to a thief, who must jump over the wall, a true shepherd uses the door to enter the fold. Each night, the shepherd guards the door. When he calls, his sheep respond because they know him, trust him, and follow him.  In Jesus’ day, many shepherds shared the same pasture and even drove their flocks together into a sheepfold at night. In the morning, each shepherd would stand at the open gate and call for his sheep. The flock would recognize his voice and follow him out.  That is the beauty of this analogy.

In our lives, or at least in MY life, I lived for about 23-24 years without knowing Jesus personally.  I had this inclination to search for answers though, to seek out the truth; I had something in me that just wanted to know if there really was a God and if He had a place for me.  I had a nagging sense that there was something for me to know and to find.  Like a sheep, I was looking for my shepherd, I was seeking out that voice to call me home.  I think most people have that in them.  When things get crazy in life, at some point, most people look up for answers.  It could be, as many psychologists suggest, that we have been conditioned because of our ability to reason and communicate that some kind of a god-being is universally communicated and so we know that is an option to consider, but it could also be true that we look up because God put that inclination inside of us.  At this point in life, having seen what I’ve seen and experienced what I’ve experienced, I just choose to believe the latter rather than the former.  I think God is in me in that way; I think He is in all of us in that subtle way.  This analogy from Jesus today is just a reminder that when God calls, He can get the attention of His children, His sheep.  I pray that I will live my life in a way where I can hear Him call...and not just in the emergencies, but in the daily living, as He guides me from one place to another.  That’s what relationship with God is all about.