Daily Butter 8/9: I Baaaaaaa'd

My little addition to Our Daily Bread (8/9/11):

What man among you, who has 100 sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? (Luke 15:4 HCSB)

Today’s ODB was without a doubt in my mind the Spirit using the reminders written by David C. McCasland to draw me back. My scheduled hours between my two jobs allowed me only about 4 hours to rest on Sunday, which prevented me from gathering with my fellow believers. That night, I got searching out topics on the net (not bad- some even good like adding the free eBook of “Selected sermons of Jonathan Edwards” to “My Google eBooks Library”) that I didn’t get to ODB.org. I commented to Sharon when I got home Monday morning that I forgot and wondered if I should try to do it then, but chose not to. Tonight, reading the reminder that our God has always compared His chosen people to sheep and the reminder from that analogy that the safety is in the togetherness of the flock made it even clearer that I need the community of faith and how dearly I miss it when kept away. The inclusion of “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” was just masterful as that hymn has been dear to my faith walk (being sung at the close of every Communion at the church in which I was raised). Yet this verse from another great hymn was brought to mind reading the first paragraph of today’s ODB as my self-imposed duty to be consistent to this pulled me back when my thoughts were wandering down dangerous paths earlier:

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

(Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing – Verse 4 - Net Hymnal emphasis mine)

Andy Jentes