The Lord is our Shepherd, A Sheep Scale Prayer

The Lord is our shepherd,

I shall not want.

(1) The Good Shepherd reminds me that the silly sheep belong to him, and that Jesus probably stuck his tongue out to his disciples and friends.

(2) God leadeth me beside still waters, so that, at times, I am a contented sheep.

(3) When I am a frazzled sheep, overwhelmed and tired, God restoreth my soul.

(4) Even when I want to hide my meager sheep’s head in a bucket, or wander away from the fold–God sends the Holy Spirit to lead me back on the path of righteousness.

(5) And when the path wearies, God gives us a deep and uncompromising sleep, for The Good Shepherd’s name’s sake.

(6) Like a sheep, I am clothed in the beauty your mercy; your rod and your staff comfort me. You surround me with love.

(7) Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, half hiding half jumping at shadows, you are with me.

(8) You anoint my head with oil, my cup overfloweth, and I pant in anticipation of the feast awaiting all of your sheep in heaven. Even in the presence of my enemies, you bless food so it somehow still tastes good.

(9) Some days I leap for joy, remembering that goodness and mercy will chase after me, and someday I will be able to gambol in the house of the Lord, my shepherd, til the end of my life.

So we give thanks to you our Lord and Shepherd, the silly sheep, the resting sheep, the frazzled sheep, the hidden sheep, the exhausted sheep. Help us to see the sheep who are clothed in grace and the sheep who are jumping at shadows, the sheep who hunger for the kingdom and the sheep who remember to leap in joy. Remind us that there is no wrong kind of sheep, and that we, each and every one of us, belong to the shepherd.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Permission to use or adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Pandemic Prayers & Resources

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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