I live around sheep, lots of sheep. I have one, my brother has one, and I had a second that killed itself (and shortly thereafter became dinner). I have two sheep of a friend's on my place plus a two week old lamb, and there were six more sheep with them that got turned slowly one by one into freezer packing material. I work for a guy who owns nine sheep, and is getting more. Whenever I can, I butcher sheep. So far my count that I have helped with or done by myself has reached 17, I believe. So, needless to say, I live around a lot of sheep. Not as many as some, and not even a lot compared to them, but compared to the vast majority of the population, I live around a lot of sheep.
Funny thing about sheep.The Bible compares humans to sheep a lot.
Psalm 44:11 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen.
Psalm 44:22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Psalm 95:7 For He is our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear His voice,
Psalm 100:3 Know ye that the LORD He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Psalm 119:176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.
So we are obviously like sheep in more ways than one. I have even seen some guys who seemed be trying to grow a wool coat on the top of their head.
Oh, I also have helped shear sheep.....
Anyway.
You get the idea. It seems God made sheep to be like us, so we could see what us retarded humans look like in plain no-bones-about-it format (besides the other wonderful reason - so we can eat them : D ).
Being around sheep like I do a lot, you get to see all the ways we are similar, and how stupid we must look to God (cause believe me, the sheep sure seem stupid to me).
This is a diagnostic of how we are like sheep based upon my experiences with them.
1. Sheep, without help, are helplessly stupid, and by golly humans are too. Meaning we do all the dumbest things to try to save our own measly selves.
2. Sheep run from the very things that are supposed to help them and towards the things that will kill them.
Humans run away from God, and towards our own stupid self (wait, stupidity - that sounds familiar.....)
3. Sheep tend to stay together in groups, and the flock follows the leader implicitly. Humans tend to be "pack animals" and will follow one particular person or group of people that they trust with great fidelity.
4. Sheep will kill themselves if they are scared enough. Literally. I have had two do that to me. Both were scared to bits of being stuck in a pen, and rammed themselves into things till they broke their neck. Bright idea, obviously. Humans also tend to do destructive things to try to save themselves or make themselves feel better. Physically and spiritually. We run to things, either real or immaterial, that is supposed to fill the hole in our heart, but in reality it tears us down further.
5. Sheep, Rams in particular, batter their pen to pieces when something they want is on the other side. Ewes for instance. Humans tend to break any and all all possible barriers in their way of having whatever they want, Spiritually and physically.
6. Sheep can get places in an awful hurry when running from the shepherd, but are ridiculously clumsy. When humans run from God, we do it fast, but we are so in a hurry to try to get away from God as fast as we possibly can, it is really kinda stupid all the things we do and how obvious we are that we are running from God.
7. Sheep will learn to like and follow and trust what feeds them constantly. If you feed the sheep by hand for eight weeks solid, they will learn sooner or later that you are probably a pretty safe fellow to hang around, and will constantly be hanging around you hoping for more food. At my bosses place I am always swamped by sheep trying to overrun me who are sure that I should be feeding them. Humans will follow whatever feeds their soul constantly, and will always be trying to get more. Stupid (hey, there's that stupid again.....) humans don't realize, without God's help, that He is the only thing that can ever really feed them, and as soon as they learn that and have been "fed" a few hundred times, will follow him because they know He is the only one that every really gives them what they truly need.
8. Sheep, by nature, are scared to death of humans. I have never met a sheep that even like being within a mile of humans and would be out of town in an awful hurry if they had their own free will. Humans naturally run from God, and everything in us to the core of our natural man runs from God and everything that is connected to him.
Then of course, there are the areas where we are different than sheep. The biggest and most obvious example off the top of my head is that sheep taste awfully good. Humans don't. All the times I have bitten myself, I really wasn't thinking how great and flavorful the taste was. With sheep, I do.
So, that's what I know about sheep and their likeness to humans. Drop some more in the comments if you know of any!
We really owe it to God on this one (like we don't already on everything else....) for giving us such a picture of what we look like to him, by giving us sheep to work with. Sometimes it's pretty, most of the time it's funny, and the rest is convicting to how stupid we are. Man, that Stupid sure seems to be a theme around here or something....
So, in summary: God is good - Sheep taste great.
