Little Bo Peep

I've been really thinking a lot about this nursery rhyme over the last few days (strange I know).

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
and doesn't know where to find them,
leave them alone,
and they will come home,
wagging their tails behind them.


What has struck me is the contrast between this rhyme and what Jesus says in Luke 15:4

"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

What a difference!

Over the last few weeks because I am conducting some XEE training I've been really conscious of the fact that most of us in the church behave like "Little Bo Peep" waiting for a sheep to bump into us. We use terms like "divine appointments" etc. and hope that when it happens we will be able, somehow, to become their friends and maybe invite them to church or an 'Alpha' group or similar.

Now those things are nice when they happen and we should - "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15). But I get the impression that Jesus wants us to be an actively "going" people searching out the "lost sheep" not waiting, not "leaving them alone".

So I'm putting my coat on - there's a lost sheep to be found!

John