Editorial February 27, 2023 Issue

Being a sheep, not a shepherd

Larissa Snorek

Sheep often get a bad rap. Being a sheep normally connotes blindly following, being timid or weak, or generally not thinking for oneself. But what if being sheep-like instead meant being meek, innocent, receptive to Truth, God? And what if expressing these qualities was actually the way to go in life—was how to live so as to bring healing to our and others’ lives? King David’s well-known 23rd Psalm makes a case for this.

Referring to God as our Shepherd, he wrote that we cannot be in want. We will be led to green pastures and beside still waters (to satisfy hunger and thirst) and comforted in the valley of the shadow (which can be dangerous for sheep), and goodness and mercy will follow us all our days.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science, illustrates this relationship to God as our Shepherd in her poem “ ‘Feed my sheep’ ”:

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