Following the One Who Calls Your Name

God placed Adam in the garden to teach him how to subdue, to have dominion, and bring creation under God’s word. Adam would start out small in a controlled environment and grow from there. The next step in Adam’s training was to name the animals. The would follow Adam as he called them by name in the same way that sheep follow shepherds today in the Holy Land. Israel is one of the few places on earth where shepherds still practice leading their sheep by calling, rather than driving them with a stick. Adam was taught to lead in the same way he was being led; by word.

         We do the same today with pets. The first thing you do is to give your pet a name. One reason is so that your pet will come when you call it by name. Dogs, horses, and sheep seem to still have a faint knowledge of this, but cats seemed to be one of the first to have forgotten who was to be in the lead; just saying.

         When a husband and wife have a child, they give the child a name. In doing this they have a special relationship with their baby. As the child begins to grow she learns her name from her parents and begins to learn manners, language, and the culture of the family in a loving relationship. She will learn to respect authority and follow instructions. In so doing, she will learn personal leadership, following her parent’s instructions even when they are not around. All of this starts with a name. So it was from the beginning.

         Jesus described this special relationship with these words, “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him for they know his voice…My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:3 – 4, 27. God has kept the shepherd/sheep relationship in the Holy Land as a continual parable of the way he created us to follow Christ and so learn to give leadership to ourselves, our families, our churches, communities and world.

         One of the reasons you are encouraged in this book to develop a daily time of reading and praying a psalm, a small piece of Proverbs, some from the gospels, the New Testament letters, a section of the law, the history, and the prophets is so that you will learn to follow the Lord according to his word. As God’s word becomes more and more a part of the beginning of your day, the more you will be aware of his voice throughout the day. You will hear him more and more clearly leading you by his word. This is how God created you to lead from the beginning; by following his word.

         Today, memorize and meditate on Psalm 119:73, “Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.”