I love watching the series on YouTube called “Made with Love”. The shows highlight different families that have children with Down Syndrome. Each family celebrates the unique qualities of the child and treasures the gifts each one brings to the family. The series wanted to raise awareness because often those with Down Syndrome are considered outcasts simply because of their difference. Yet, those who are surrounded by people with Down Syndrome realize the joy, the love, the gift of who they are.
I was reminded of this show as I was thinking of God’s flock in Ezekiel 34.
Ezekiel 34:20-22
Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says to them: “See, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them away, I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another.”
God’s flock is different from what the world thinks a flock should be. The world would choose the strong sheep, the winner, the fat sheep showing health and vitality. Not God. He picks the fragile, the weak, the one who loses the battle. The overlooked are the ones He seeks after.
Ezekiel 34:15-16
I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
The sleek and the strong are destroyed. In God’s flock, He removes what is valued by the world, what is considered popular, successful, healthy, and strong. Instead, the Lord chooses the lost, the stray, the injured, and the weak.
What the world overlooks, God sees. What the world values, God destroys. What the world injures, God heals. What the world rejects, God accepts. What the world discards, God finds.
Find comfort, little sheep, in the Shepherd who made you, who loves you, who chose you. You may feel inadequate, lost, confused, lonely, forsaken, ignored, ridiculed, weary, downcast, rejected, and misunderstood. That is the world’s words over you. But today, hear God’s words to you.
Ezekiel 34:31
You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.