Fall Getaway, growing closer to Christ

Wow. I'm involved in an on-campus ministry here called Cru, and I just got back from a retreat called Fall Getaway. If you're reading this and you're a student at U of I, GO NEXT YEAR. It was such an awesome experience and a chance to grow closer to the Lord, and further understand the personal relationship I have the honor of having with Him. Our speaker we had for the weekend was Ryan Berg (twitter: @ryanbergusa), who is a guy who's on staff with Cru in Cincinnati. Man is he on fire for the Lord! He's a man filled with such passion for the Truth, and he's blessed with the gift of explaining it in a way that everyone can understand and relate to.

What I enjoyed most about his talks was that he dispelled the common misconception that Jesus Christ was a nice guy who just hugged everyone and had cute squirrels and doves all around him. In his talk about Christ being the Good Shepherd, he made it clear what that truly meant. Typically we think of shepherds today as this:

I don't know what this is, but it's weird.

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That looks like the lamest, most boring, weakest job you could have. In the time that the book of John was written, however, the hardship of a shepherd was well known, and the Pharisees who Jesus was talking to understood the true caring and labor He was talking about (John 10:1-18). The shepherd had to constantly pick up the sheep who would get themselves into trouble. When sheep got scared, they would freeze up and fall over on their sides, unable to get up on their own. The good shepherd would very carefully massage each leg of the sheep to restore feeling, then slowly pick the heavy sheep up to a standing position... but still wouldn't let go. Then he would help the sheep start to walk again, then set it on the correct path, and THEN finally let go. This parallels the fact that Jesus doesn't just let us stay fallen as if we weren't worth His time. He takes His strong hands, the hand of a father who cares, and brings us back to life, then leads us toward His intended path. Without Him, we would be laying helplessly on our backs, with no chance of getting up, just waiting for death. But our Lord cares for us individually, and seeks a personal relationship with us. This weekend just gave me some perspective on that, and really helped me to grow more in my faith.

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

John 10:11