Daily Manna · Day 256 · September 13
The Gentle Shepherd
“He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.”
We are not gentle with slow people, and we are least gentle of all when the slow person is us.
Read the chapter this verse sits in and the scale of it is almost aggressive. He measures the waters in the hollow of his hand. He metes out heaven with a span. The nations are as a drop of a bucket, counted as the small dust of the balance. The isles are picked up like a very little thing. He brings the princes to nothing and makes the judges of the earth as vanity. Verse ten says his arm shall rule for him.
And then verse eleven, with no seam in between. That same arm gathers the lambs. He carries them in his bosom. He gently leads those that are with young, which is to say he sets the pace of the whole flock by whichever animal can least afford to hurry.
It is one arm. That is what the chapter is built to make you see. The strength that measures the sea and the tenderness that slows down for a pregnant ewe are not two moods in God that alternate. The gentleness is not a concession he makes on his softer days. It is how the strong arm actually behaves.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 256 is A Great Way Off (Luke 15:20).