This week Christina and I were privileged to be hosted by friends of ours who own a big farm in Iowa. They grow corn, soybeans, and raise sheep. For dinner we were served the first fruit of their corn and potato harvest. One morning I got up to help Gary with deworming the sheep. Gary has 750 sheep that need a deworming injection. The process requires to gather the sheep into a chute were they pass by one by one while Garry injects them. My job was to let the injected ones out. It may sound simple, but these sheep kept pushing their way out and it was all I could do to not let uninjected ones escape. I watched the sheep as Gary was manoeuvering them through the chute. They fought like crazy. I guess just like kids, they don’t like shots. They were giving Gary a real hard time and even the other helper was having difficulty herding them towards the chute. As a Bible reader I could not escape the analogy. God compares us to sheep. Do we give him such a hard time? At the table that night Gary’s wife told me that being compared to sheep is not complimentary. Sheep are poor problem solvers. I noticed that Gary would lead certain sheep enticing them with grain. “This is one of my lead sheep!” he said. “I’ve got to be nice to it. It’s part of their training.” Sheep do not follow the shepherd; they follow the lead sheep. The shepherd therefore has to develop a close relationship with the lead sheep so it obeys him. To do that the shepherd gives it extra care and food. If the lead sheep is well taken care of it will follow him and lead the others. Does this principle apply to human behavior? Every company, society, church, family, group with a leadership structure needs its pillars who lead the people, and these pillars are groomed through the establishment of good personal relationships with leadership.
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