Shepherds and Gods in the making
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. …. I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me John 10:11& 14
Shepherds appear at important places in the bible. And sometimes angels appear to shepherds. Two very important places that this happens is:
- the announcement of the birth of Christ in Luke 2:8. The angels announce to the Shepherd that the great I AM is about to incarnate.
- in Exodus 3 when we first hear about this I AM.
“Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, … And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here am I.” Ex 3:1ff
God then gave Moses quite a bit of advice about bringing the people out of Egypt, out of the darkness and it continues:
… Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM who I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Without being a Hebrew scholar it doesn’t take much to imagine that word ‘who’ - I am ‘who’ I am - was placed there to satisfy the material mind.
Surely this God really said I AM the I AM. Therefore if we are striving to become the I AM doesn’t that mean that we are striving to become a God? It really is an awesome consideration.
Look around the world; people are bleeding rivers of blood in the name of peace. People are hateful, angry, hurting, and resentful. They cry for compensation for their misfortunes. Why can’t they see that they are becoming Gods? that their misfortune is the path to becoming a God!
It’s agony this business of becoming a God, this moving out of the darkness of our unconsciousness. It is an entirely different view if we see the Gods-in-the-making all around us each day.
Is it possible to say that we love Christ and then hate the other person, that God-in-the-making? Wouldn’t that mean that we crucify Christ again and again? In Matthew we read those powerful words, “whatever you do to least of these, you do to me?”
That is what the I AM is all about. The more connected we are with our I AM the more fully we feel the other person’s sorrow, pain and joy as if it was our own. The less self-absorbed we are, and the more we can see things from the other person’s point of view.
The more integrated our I AM is the less we criticise or judge because we know how that degrades the other person. If they are degraded then so are we. We don’t put ourselves down either; we must strive to honestly assess ourselves. Not to overrate or underrate. Then we see, patiently, that we are all moving forward in our own way. We can never think that we greater or more advanced; just taking a different route. Who knows whose route is longer or shorter? Hebrews 13 tells us that “Some have entertained angels unawares.”
It is interesting that fear, anxiety, hatred and anger seem to be increasing. This is actually a good sign because it is proof of the proximity of the I AM. The I AM exerts pressure on us as it tries to connect with us. The great Shepherd is calling, his voice is urgent. It is up to us to hear his voice saying, ‘Raise your consciousness. See the possibilities of the I AM, you are gods-in-the-making. Don’t shrink back from the discomfort, don’t try to escape or withdraw, never mind about feeling insecure. Embrace these things knowing that within them you will find your I AM.’