Come Follow Me: John 7-10 Being His sheep

 So this week's Come Follow Me study lesson is John 7-10. As I approach it, I look back on the days three years ago when I was writing every day. I feel like the inspiration came more easily back then. That I could just start writing and things that I thought were deeper would just come to me. 

Being vulnerable a bit here, I don't feel that way now. I approach today's blog feeling like it's more of a thing I have to do in order to honor a commitment to myself. If I let it drop off, I let myself down - as well as who knows who else. But that's a different set of motivations than me wanting to write so I can be lifted and lift others. 

I believe that it's true that doing the right thing can come with different levels of motivation, but that doing something for a lower motivation is better than not doing it. For example, is bringing over dinner to a shut-in grudgingly better than not doing it? Probably, depending on how it's done - there are different levels to even that - but I'm thinking that doing it in a non-pissy way is better than not doing it. 

So as I read in John, it rings familiar to me that even Jesus when he walked the earth he didn't convince everybody. The God of the universe, the only perfect man, was still not able to convince everyone and bring them to the truth. Why? Of course part of it probably has much to do with agency. Another part of it likely has to do with whether we're "his sheep". 

I think most of us would say that if an angel stood in front of us and told us to do "X", we'd do it. I believe that's probably not what would happen though. We would maybe do the task grudgingly, or give ourselves a pass because we doubt whether we're up to the task. Or think the messenger was a psychotic moment - or a dream - or a hallucination, or a prank. There are excuses aplenty. 

And here's another thought: why would a God who knows us and loves us by giving us an angelic moment like that if he believes or knows that we would not follow through? An unfollowed angelic message would certainly condemn us - and a loving God wouldn't want that for us. 

So Jesus taught in a way that was uniquely him (John 4:46) and did miracles. Proof enough? Apparently not. Those who were not spiritually ready so see and accept just used the miracles as an opportunity to theorize and debate. The Lord's sheep noted the miracles, but the miracles didn't make people the Lord's sheep. 

So then for me the question is how do you become one of the Lord's sheep? Rather than argue about the Lord's guidance, how do you become the person that receives it, knows it, obeys it, and is lifted and protected for it? 

The Lord didn't leave that out in this chapter. He says "My sheep hear my voice". There may be any number of loud voices calling us in each of 1000 ways. How do you figure out which voice you follow? I think the answer is that you don't. You learn who your master is, who your shepherd is, and then you follow that voice. The more we do it, the easier it is to remember and follow that voice. When we listen to other voices, the difficulty of hearing the one True voice increases substantially. 

John 7:14-17 even gives us the pathway to become his sheep. Of course it's simple. Based on my experience, the Lord doesn't have difficult recipes. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine". So we keep the commandments. That's how we learn his voice.

I go to the scene of the meth addict who says "well if God sends me a message, I'll dedicate my life". I'd say probably not. To know of the doctrine, we need to do his will. He needs to know that what he gives us will result in a blessing to us, not a curse. 

This is the part where I try to wrap things up in a cute little ball. I don't have it. I guess at least with this blog post right now, I'm doing His will. Even if my motivations were less than excellent, I still did His will. That's more than nothing. For that, I'll give myself a win today.