Psalms 119:176: “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant for I do not forget thy commandments.”

“I’m just a little lamb who is lost in the woods,

I know that I could always be good,

To someone who will watch over me. “- George Gershwin  “Someone to Watch Over Me”

David had been a shepherd, he knew all about sheep and their tendency to get lost. There are a number of different words in the Hebrew for sheep. Whatever is important in a culture will be reflected in the language. For instance, snow is important to an Eskimo, they observe many different types of snow, one type, a powder like snow is good for tracking another, a damp snow is used for building igloos, and hence the Eskimos have something like twenty five words for snow.  So too, in Hebrew where sheep are very important in their culture you find many different words for sheep to express the different types of sheep.  In Psalms 119:176 David uses a rather unusual word for sheep. Here he uses the word kesh for the lost sheep. It is interesting that he should use the word kesh in relationship to lost sheep.

You see David knew sheep were animals of little brain. Unlike other animals sheep cannot find their way without a leader. They will naturally follow any leader.  The longer a sheep is with a shepherd the more intimate that sheep will become to the shepherd and the more unlikely it is to lose its way.  However, sheep that have spent little time with its shepherd will be more prone to follow the call of another shepherd and will wander away from its shepherd and get lost. Some sheep just follow their own way to feed and will become so focused on its own feeding that it will wander away from the flock.

There is an innocence about wandering sheep. Aristotle, writing in the Greek, pointed out the similarity of the word for feeding and wandering in the Greek in order to show this innocence. It seems appropriate that God would use the illustration of a wandering sheep to show His loving care. He is not angry with us when we wander, He understands that our wandering is not intentional or rebellious, but just the result of being too focused on our physical needs such as eating.

We focus on our jobs, our finances, and our health so much that we never stop to look up at our Shepherd and before long he is gone. Not that he has left us but we have left him and lost our way. Once a sheep has gone astray, he will not find his way back to the flock, unless the shepherd comes looking for him, he will remain lost. That is why David says in this verse “seek they servant.” All that little lamb can do is stand in his lost condition and baa, hoping his shepherd will find him.

At the age of 22, Robert Robinson penned the words to “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” After suffering various misfortunes in business and in his personal life, Robert Robinson wandered away from God. Many years later in his early 40’s, almost 20 years after writing the hymn: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing he walked into an evangelistic meeting where he heard the words of Scripture that he had not heard in almost 20 years. After the service ended Robert Robinson stayed in his seat in deep thought.  The evangelist came up to him and asked if he could help.  Robert Robinson explained how he had once known God and served him but had wandered away from him for almost 20 years and was now in deep despair. The evangelist picked up a song book and said: “Let me read to you song that has been a great help to me and many others in a situation like yours.” He then read these words:
Oh to grace how great a debtor, Daily I’m constrained to be,

Let thy goodness like a fetter, Bind my wander heart to thee,

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love,

Here’s my heart oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”

When Robert Robinson heard those words, he broke down and wept. The evangelist apologized and said he did not mean to cause such grief.  Robert Robinson replied: “No, you don’t understand, twenty years ago I wrote that song.” His words of twenty years earlier brought him back to Jesus, as it did for many others. Robert Robinson returned to God and the ministry and served God faithfully the rest of his life. Those lost years of wanderings were but a sacrifice, used to prove the great love of God to find one of his lost sheep and return him to the flock.

This is just as David saw that his own wanderings and going astray was also a sacrifice that God could use to show many generations the lovingkindness of the Good Shepherd.  Oh, by the way, I never told you the type of sheep a kesh was. The word that David uses for the lost sheep is keseh in the Hebrew. A keseh is really a lamb, but a very special lamb, it is the sacrificial lamb. David didn’t see himself as any old lamb going astray, he was the sacrificial lamb that went astray. If you are one who has lived a life of hardship, pain, heartbreak and misery perhaps you are like David, a kesh, prone to wander, prone to leave the God you love. Perhaps you too are a lost kesh and cannot find your way back to God.  All you can do is baa, but the Good Shepherd is searching for you and when He finds you He will pick you up and carry you back to His flock.  Those lost years will be a sacrifice to be used to help other lost sheep find the way back to the Shepherd.