Finding Christ First: The Lost Sheep

I have discovered a key that helps me to find deeper, richer, more personal meaning in the parables of Jesus Christ.

That key is to find Christ in his parables first.

In the past I didn't do that. I would immediately find myself in each parable so I could understand how the parable applied to me.

But I have learned to wait to apply a parable to myself until after I have found the Savior in the parable. I find Christ first. Then I find myself in relation to Him and try to learn the parable's lessons from that point of view.

Take, for example, one of my favorite parables, the Parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15:4-6:

"What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

"And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

"And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost."

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke about this parable in his April 2016 General Conference talk titled, "He Will Place You on His Shoulders and He Will Carry You Home."

President Uchtdorf commented:

"Over the centuries, this parable has traditionally been interpreted as a call to action for us to bring back the lost sheep and to reach out to those who are lost. While this is certainly appropriate and good, I wonder if there is more to it.

"Is it possible that Jesus’s purpose, first and foremost, was to teach about the work of the Good Shepherd?

"Is it possible that He was testifying of God’s love for His wayward children?

"Is it possible that the Savior’s message was that God is fully aware of those who are lost—and that He will find them, that He will reach out to them, and that He will rescue them?"

(For the complete talk, click here.)

As President Uchtdorf points out, this parable has traditionally been interpreted as a moral call to action for us to be like the shepherd in the story by seeking after those who are lost and bringing them back. This is all well and good.

But President Uchtdorf points us toward a deeper, more personal meaning.

What would happen if we looked to find the Savior in the parable first and then considered how the parable applies to us?

When I look for Christ in this parable, I immediately recognize Him as the Good Shepherd in the story.

If Christ is the Good Shepherd, who am I in the story? Clearly, I am the one lost sheep.

What do I learn from this relationship?

The Savior, as the Good Shepherd, leaves everyone and everything to look for me, His lost sheep, until he finds me. He never gives up. When He has found me, He lays me on His shoulders, rejoicing, and carries me home. Then He calls together all who will come to rejoice with Him, "for I have found my sheep which was lost."

From this I begin to understand how much the Savior truly loves me and values me personally and to what lengths He has gone, and will go, to rescue me and carry me home.

Then . . .

I look again, and I ask who else I might be in the story. Is there more for me to learn about my relationship with the Savior by placing myself somewhere else in the story?

What about the ninety-nine other sheep?

To understand more about how I can relate to the ninety-nine sheep, it helps to look at the context in which this parable was given.

Luke described what was happening just before Christ told the Parable of the Lost Sheep. He wrote that "all the publicans and sinners" drew near unto Christ "to hear him," and "the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them" (Luke 15:1-2).

President Uchtdorf described the situation in this way:

"During the Savior’s ministry, the religious leaders of His day disapproved of Jesus spending time with people they had labeled 'sinners.'

"Perhaps to them it looked like He was tolerating or even condoning sinful behavior. Perhaps they believed that the best way to help sinners repent was by condemning, ridiculing, and shaming them.

"When the Savior perceived what the Pharisees and scribes were thinking, He told [the Parable of the Lost Sheep]."

I ask myself, who was Jesus speaking to?

He was associating and eating with people the Pharisees considered to be sinners, who had come to hear Him. Surely His message of rejoicing over the lost sheep was for them.

But His story was prompted by the Pharisees' murmuring that "[t]his man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them" and seems to have been directed particularly to them.

When thinking about this, it may help to learn a little more about the Pharisees of that day. The LDS Bible Dictionary defines Pharisees as follows:

"A religious party among the Jews. The name denotes separatists. They prided themselves on their strict observance of the law and on the care with which they avoided contact with things gentile. . . . The tendency of their teaching was to reduce religion to the observance of a multiplicity of ceremonial rules and to encourage self-sufficiency and spiritual pride."

With such attitudes, the Pharisees would surely have identified with the "ninety and nine" sheep in the story that were not lost.

Seen in that context, Jesus's story was an invitation for the Pharisees to recognize the love with which He, the Good Shepherd, went to find and rescue His sheep that were lost, and was an invitation to them, as His "friends and neighbours," to rejoice with Him over each lost soul found and brought home.

But I think Jesus was presenting the Pharisees with an even greater invitation, if they would only open their eyes to see and their ears to hear.

After Jesus finished reciting the parable, He said, "I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance" (Luke 15:7).

Just persons which need no repentance? Surely that is how the Pharisees must have seen themselves. They were the ninety-nine sheep in the story that weren't lost. They strictly followed the Law of Moses and needed no repentance.

I have to stop here and ask myself, how have I been like the Pharisees? How do I identify with the ninety-nine sheep in the parable? Have I seen myself as righteous and others as sinners? Do I see myself as better than others? Do I think in terms of us and them? Where am I being hypocritical? Do I not see my ongoing need for repentance? Do I not see that we are all in this together? Do I not see or acknowledge my own need for the Savior?

I think the pridefulness of such a point of view could have become evident to the Pharisees if they had humbled themselves and pondered on Jesus's use of sheep in this parable. The Pharisees had been schooled in the teachings of Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, who wrote:

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord [our Heavenly Father] hath laid on him [the Savior] the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6; emphasis added).

I believe Jesus used sheep in this parable for a reason. From Isaiah's words, it becomes obvious that all of the sheep in the parable—even the "ninety and nine"—were lost without the Good Shepherd. When Jesus spoke of ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance, he must have been speaking "tongue in cheek."

Indeed, the Pharisees had great need to repent of their pridefulness, their unrighteous judgment and their hypocrisy. (See Matthew 23.)

We are His sheep. We have all gone astray and have turned, every one of us, to our own way. One hundred percent of us.

But, in a wonderful way, each of us is the "one" lost sheep for which the Good Shepherd leaves everything behind to rescue and carry home! Through His atonement, the Savior finds and rescues each one of us, individually, when we but let Him.

These lessons were apparently so important that Jesus, after relating the Parable of the Lost Sheep, went on to share two other related parables: The Parable of the Lost Coin and the Parable of the Lost Son (also known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son; see also Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's April 2002 General Conference talk titled The Other Prodigal.)

Christ's invitation to the Pharisees was the same invitation He extends to every one of God's children. It is an invitation to come and feast with Him at the table of the Lord.

When we do so, it then becomes our blessing and opportunity to serve as His "under shepherds" by helping to bring others unto Him so they, too, can partake at the Lord's table.

It is not our job to be the Good Shepherd. We are not the One who rescues. Our job is simply to come unto Christ and invite and help others to come with us. The Good Shepherd does all that is needed to find each one of us, place us on His shoulders and carry us safely home.

I am grateful for what I am learning about, and from, finding the Savior first. Christ is my Polar Star. By finding Him first, I am able to find my way—for He is the Way (John 14:6; Alma 38:9).

Looking Forward With an Eye of Faith

One December when I was serving as a bishop, I shared three Book of Mormon scriptures with the members of my ward during tithing settlement. Those three scriptures all included the phrase, "with an eye of faith." I think they are worth reading and pondering.

Alma 5:15:

"Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?"

Alma 32:40-41:

"[I]f ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life.

"But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life."

Ether 12:19:

"And there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong, even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil, but truly saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith, and they were glad."

Several members of our ward thanked me—some more than once—for sharing these verses with them. For some, I know the message of faith in these verses enabled them to hope for a more glorious future than they had been seeing before.

Those who look forward with an eye of faith are able to see things others do not.

The scriptures become more than just words on a page. They become windows to wisdom and personal revelation.

Prayer becomes more than just an internal monologue or an upward cry for help. It becomes continuous communication and communion with heaven.

Even dreams become less confusing and more meaningful.   

Life becomes more joyful, because you can hear, feel and dance to the music of the gospel. You can't not dance!

You discover that literally all things, everywhere you look, bear witness of God!

"And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me" (Moses 6:63).

Not long after tithing settlement ended, I attended a stake priesthood leadership meeting where our stake president, whose family was in my ward, quoted one of the scriptures I had shared about looking forward with an eye of faith. President Sheffield taught us that the temple, more than anywhere else, is where we look forward with an eye of faith while participating for ourselves and our ancestors in the saving and exalting ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I share my witness that these things are true. By looking forward with an eye of faith, I have received understanding, peace, purpose and direction. By faith, my hope in (i.e., assurance of) the promised fruits and blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ continually increases. I don't have to wait until the next life to experience many of those fruits and blessings. I am experiencing them all along my way.

For "[t]hat which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day" (Doctrine and Covenants 50:24).

Whitewater Rafting and Faith

Several years ago, Anita and our son Sam and I went whitewater rafting on the Kern River just below Isabella Lake in Central California. None of us had ever been rafting before.

I should pause here and tell you that anyone who knows me would never expect me to know or write anything about whitewater rafting or any other extreme sport. I should be embarrassed that I get more excited about trying to produce a well-written sentence than I do about risking my life just for the thrill of it. But bear with me. I learned some things from my first and only rafting experience that I dare to share.

Before starting down the river, we put on our PFDs and our guide gave us a lot of helpful training. Some of the training focused on how to stay in the raft and what to do if we fell out. If we fell out, we shouldn't panic. We should simply go with the flow of the river and the raft would come and get us. He showed us how to pull someone back onto the raft and had us practice doing that. And he said whenever we hit turbulent water we could avoid falling out by using three points of support: Our seat, our toeholds and the water.

The water? Really?

He said even though it would seem counterintuitive, if we leaned out over the water to make deep strokes with our paddles, bending forward at the waist and using our entire upper bodies to power the strokes rather than just our arms, then the water would support us, and whenever the raft bounced it would bounce us back into the raft. But if we tried to keep our bodies safely inside the raft and made only shallow paddle strokes, a bounce of the raft would send us right into the river.

We soon found out exactly what our guide was talking about. It so happened that enough water was being released that afternoon from the dam upriver at Isabella Lake to produce some class 4 rapids on our section of the river—something that our guide, and we, did not expect. Normally this stretch of the river was only a class 2 or 3, which would have been more friendly for beginners like us.

To give you a sense of the difference, on the International Scale of River Difficulty, a class 4 river has "[i]Intense, powerful but predictable rapids requiring precise boat handling in turbulent water. Depending on the character of the river, it may feature large, unavoidable waves and holes or constricted passages demanding fast maneuvers under pressure. A fast, reliable eddy turn may be needed to initiate maneuvers, scout rapids, or rest. Rapids may require 'must' moves above dangerous hazards. Scouting may be necessary the first time down. Risk of injury to swimmers is moderate to high, and water conditions may make self-rescue difficult. Group assistance for rescue is often essential but requires practiced skills."

Needless to say, once we hit the rapids we were instantly grateful for the time our guide had taken to carefully instruct us.

I learned right away how important it was to cling to my toeholds whenever the forces of the river began to lift me up off my seat. More than once I had to hang on by my toes for dear life.

What was more surprising for me was how much stability I felt when I leaned out to make whole-body strokes through the rushing water. With my paddle I could literally lean on the water, and the water would support me and keep me inside the raft.

By doing these things, I made it all the way down the river without going overboard. Barely.

Anita and Sam weren't so lucky.

When Anita fell into the water she quickly bobbed up on the other side of the raft, where someone grabbed her by her shoulder straps and, in one motion, fell backwards, using his own body weight to lift her onto the raft—just as our guide had taught us to do. Anita was back on the raft in a matter of seconds.

That wasn't so bad.

What was worse, for me, was when Sam went overboard. A current carried him away from our raft and around the right side of an island, while our raft veered around the left side of the island. I panicked as I watched my son disappear from sight, knowing I couldn't do anything to save him. After what seemed like forever, we came around the island and saw Sam reappear on the other side. There the two currents merged, easily bringing Sam and the raft back together, and someone promptly pulled him onto the raft. It took me a while to get over my panic and acknowledge that it was an overreaction.

There were other adrenaline pumping incidents along the way, including one actual life-and-death rescue situation that fortunately turned out okay.

All in all it was a pretty crazy experience. More than I had bargained for.

I have learned a lot from those experiences on our little trip down the Kern River. At one level my experiences helped prepare me for any future rafting trip, but more importantly they taught me lessons for my journey on the river of life.

Like the Kern River that afternoon, the currents of life can run deeper and faster and be more treacherous than we expect them to be or think they should be. Sometimes those currents rise unexpectedly and change the conditions and hazards and flow of our lives. When that happens, we may find ourselves hanging on by our toes for dear life.

Those are times when we can exercise faith by leaning out and pressing forward through the whitewater that surrounds us. I am always surprised by how secure I feel when I choose to trust the torrent that is propelling me forward.

This reminds me of the lessons I learned from two dreams I previously described here: I am best served when I allow the Living Water to flow freely in my life and allow it to support and carry me wherever it does.

I mean wherever He does.

Leaning on the Living Water helps me stay safely on board and safely on course. But it is also okay if I, or the people I love, fall overboard. No one travels down the river of life without falling in the river many times. When we fall in the river, we can be lifted to safety. And when we or those we love fall in the river and drift in another direction, we can place our trust in the Living Water to eventually bring us back together—to bring us all safely home.

This reminds me of another, better-known story about being supported by water:

"And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

"And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.

"But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.

"And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

"And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.

"But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.

"And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

"And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

"But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

"And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

"And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

"Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God" (Mark 14:22-33).

Truly, when we focus with faith on the Savior in the storm, we are safe. We can walk on water. Our faith in Him is what supports and sustains us and gives us peace. That is what keeps us moving safely above the raging water.

Whenever we, like Peter, become afraid and find ourselves sinking in despair, we can also exercise faith from that place, crying out and reaching up so He can lift us to safety.

I have learned for myself that He does.

And He will.

Guilt, Shame and Godly Sorrow

I have experienced both the positive and negative sides of guilt and shame.

Guilt has been defined as “a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc.”

Shame has been defined as “the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another.”

Guilt and shame are helpful, healthy emotions when they help us realize we have turned from God, turned away from light, or crossed a boundary that God or man has set for our protection and well being.

Guilt and shame are gifts from God to help us recognize sin and error and repent by turning back to the light. They are healthy emotions when they cause us to humble ourselves and have a broken heart and contrite spirit. They make it possible for us recognize our responsibility for choices we have made that have turned us from God and have been harmful to ourselves and others. By bringing our broken heart, our guilt and our shame unto Christ and recognizing the price He has paid for our sins, we can experience godly sorrow, which is the kind of sorrow the scriptures say leads us to repent. The Apostle Paul said:

“Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance; for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.

“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Cor. 7:9-10).

I do not think God intended for us to spend a long time wallowing in guilt or shame, because that would unnecessarily have us feel separated from Him and others and be subject to the effects of spiritual death. Instead, the Lord wants us to use those emotions to take responsibility for our actions and make course corrections in our lives.

Satan, on the other hand, would have us identify with and internalize our shame by taking it into our hearts and into our beliefs about who we are. He would have us think that because we have done shameful things we are therefore shameful people. He would have us turn guilt and shame upon ourselves in the form of self-judgment and self-condemnation and would have us believe we are unworthy of love and incapable of being forgiven. Satan would have us bathe our hearts and minds and souls constantly in shame, self-loathing, depression and hopelessness. And when we have experienced how dark and damning that can be, he would then have us jump to the false conclusion that nothing we can do is shameful and therefore anything goes.

This is in stark contrast to the positive, encouraging counsel and promises of the Lord:

“Be not ashamed, neither confounded; but be admonished in all your high-mindedness and pride, for it bringeth a snare upon your souls” (D&C 90:17).

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:  though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

“If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land” (Isaiah 1:18-19).

Guilt and shame can serve us well when we use them as a guide, like a GPS, to show us where we are and where we want to go, rather than as evidence and proof of our lack of value. 

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Thank you for visiting my blog. I welcome your comments and would love to learn from and pass along what you have to share. I will moderate comments to make sure they are consistent with the purpose of this blog.

My purpose in writing is to share my thoughts and experiences on the subject of "seeking to bring forth and establish Zion" from the perspective of a believing Mormon. I do this to leave for my children and their children, and for others, a witness of some of the things I have learned along my way, as discussed in more detail in my first post: Seek to Bring Forth and Establish Zion.

I am not looking for praise or for Facebook "likes." If just one person benefits from what I have shared, the effort to share will be worth it.

Judging Myself

A friend of mine once warned me that whenever I point a finger of judgment at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at me.

I have since thought that this might be, in part, what Jesus was talking about when he said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again" (Matthew 7:1-2).

Let me give an example of what I mean.

Early in our marriage, Anita and I would talk with each other fairly often about how much we disliked elitism. There was one person in particular that we were bugged about because he was "such an elitist." You might say we figuratively pointed a finger at him—behind his back—and said, "You are an elitist."

Later Anita realized, to her surprise, that by judging this man as an elitist, she herself was being an elitist by considering herself superior to him. And so was I. Three of our fingers were pointing back at us, saying, "You are an elitist."

When we realized we were doing to this man exactly the same thing we were judging him for, we had to repent. We humbled ourselves and began to see him with new eyes. As a result, he became one of our most respected friends.

Through this experience, we learned that when we judge others, ironically, we judge ourselves. We also put distance between ourselves and those we judge.

Do you see this pattern in your own life?

If you become angry at someone for being unkind to you, are you being unkind to them?

When someone cuts you off on the freeway, do you try to show them how bad they are by cutting them off?

What other examples can you think of?

Examples of the devastating effects of judgment are all around us. Judgment has polarized our politics. Judgment tears apart marriages and families. In society, some individuals and groups are judged and marginalized, and sometimes when they find their voices they seem intent on returning the favor.

We give ourselves and others a gift when we learn to stop judging.

Here are some of the lessons I have learned for myself about not judging:

1. There is a difference between thinking I know something and having an opinion about it, and it really helps to understand the difference. (Since we are human, finite and fallible, is there really anything that is not an opinion?)

2. There is a huge difference between exercising judgment to discern wisdom for myself and exercising judgment to condemn others.

3. I am being self-righteous when I think I know the absolute truth about something and I judge and condemn someone else for not conforming to my viewpoint.

4. I can discern and know something for myself and stand in that truth without imposing that view on others, and I can still be humble and remain open to the possibility that I might be wrong or that there might at least be more to the picture than I am currently seeing.

5. I can tell I am in judgment mode when I see that I am holding others to a standard of perfection, as defined by me, or I am insisting that a standard of "anything goes" applies to me. 

6. When I think I definitively know something, I am not open to learning anything new.

7. When I think I definitively know someone, I am not open to being surprised by them in every moment, and I am not giving them the space to grow and change.

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Nowadays, I try not to point fingers so much. All that pointing can be painful!

By instead extending an open hand and open arms, I get to give and receive friendly handshakes and warm embraces, and any distance between us disappears.

—o0o— 

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