Speaking Sheepishly – Stuart Segall

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Three gentle creatures standing obediently before a barrier that holds no real power offer a quiet parable about perception and divine perspective. The gate is symbolic not of confinement, but of the illusion of confinement.

There are no fences, no walls, no true enclosure. Yet the sheep remain, as if the iron bars were sacred law. God sees an open pasture. We feel the weight of impossibility; God sees the ease of a step to the side. The image invites us to laugh gently at ourselves, not in mockery but in compassion, realizing how often we mistake the appearance of confinement for reality.

To us, our struggles often feel like that gate: solid, immovable, defining the limits of our freedom or hope. We stand before them, convinced we cannot pass, that we are hemmed in by circumstance, pain, or fear. But from a divine vantage point, from the eyes of God, the scene is almost tenderly absurd.

The barrier is not real. The path is open. The field stretches wide with possibilities. And yet, God does not mock the sheep. There is no ridicule in the caption. Only a gentle invitation to see differently. To recognize that what feels hopeless may be nothing more than a misplaced belief. (I have done that so many times in my earlier adult years.) That the gate we honor with our resignation is not the gate that holds us.

It is a reminder that divine hope does not always come by tearing down walls with thunder and fire. Sometimes it comes by showing us that the walls were never really there. The pasture is already wide, the way already open, if only we dare to walk past the little gate. It took me a long time to know that grace often comes not by force, but by a shift in vision. May we see that the pasture is already ours, if only we dare to walk around the gate.

John 10:27: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.