A sense of belonging, acceptance, being loved is something that every human being needs. God put us in families to be loved and to learn to love. I grew up in a family and culture in which love was not physically or verbally expressed. Emotions were kept under control. Worship in our churches was reverently restrained. God was majestic, like the Southern Alps seen through my bedroom window, glorious in their frigid, winter coating of snow, but far away. Showing physical affection, even in a family, was considered dangerous to one's masculinity. What if God was like that? It was hard for me to imagine a Shepherd/Father who "gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart." No man I knew did that with his children.

Praise was given very sparingly in our culture. Compliments were almost unknown, like a foreign language. Parents were concerned not to spoil their children, or give them the "big head." The rugged individualist was to be admired. The need to belong, or any kind of dependency, was seen as a sign of weakness. Standing on your own two feet was required for self-respect. In my teenage years I longed for something more, for meaning and purpose, for personal relationships. I found a local shepherd in my pastor. Harvey Teulon, who studied theology at Cambridge University in England, a scholar with a slight stutter, and an unassuming manner, introduced me to the Bible, and nurtured my walk with Christ. His study became a sanctuary to me. I can remember borrowing his books and devouring them when I was in high school. We lived on the opposite corner of the street from the parsonage and often I found myself visiting there after school.

I was challenged to invite Jesus into my life as Lord and Savior. I became aware that I belonged to the Lord and to his people, the flock of the Good Shepherd. I was accepted on the basis of what God had done for me, not what I had to do. God loved me. I was affirmed as a child of God. The church became not just a congregation of strangers but a spiritual family. I was cared for and valued by the Lord through his local shepherds.

All through this period of adolescence and college my experience of belonging to the Lord, being loved and cared for by the Savior who died for me on the Cross and rose again to give me eternal life, filled a void and changed my life. The truths of the 23rd Psalm became alive to me. That is why it is so important to me. The psalms continually remind us of this:

Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care." (Psalm 95:6)

"Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. (Psalm 100:3)

Curtis, a very able amateur astronomer, came to see me with some questions about faith. He said that knowledge of the vast size of the universe can make us feel that humanity on this tiny planet is very unimportant. Questions about whether we are the only intelligent life in the universe are also profound. He believed in Jesus Christ, and that enabled him to have a personal relationship with the Father, which he expressed in a beautiful, humble prayer life. I shared with him that every time the world tempts me to believe that I am just a collection of cells, the product of chance, insignificant in the universe, I need to remind myself that "The Lord is my Shepherd" and that I am loved and cared for. You can believe that the universe has "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference" (Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, p.133), or you can believe that the Lord has made us, and we are his.

At birth, and in childhood, when we are aware of our dependence on our parents, and our need for their love and care, it may be easier to acknowledge our dependence and debt to God. As we grow older, we become independent and may distance ourselves from God, and forget that we are still owned by him and receive our value and affirmation from him. We are tempted to believe that we are self-made and don't need God's love. We can live under the illusion that we are autonomous and answer to no one. But it is an illusion none the less.

God does not coerce us into acknowledging his shepherding of us. But since we are created and designed to belong to God, our deepest needs will not be met unless we experience this sense of belonging to Christ, and being part of his flock. If we do not, then our lives will suffer from spiritual loneliness and a sense of isolation and despair, the condition of so many secular writers.

How do we know that we belong to the Lord? Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me." (John 10:14) The good shepherd "calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." (John 10:3-5)

It is a comfort to realize that Jesus, who is the head over every power and authority, knows us. He knows our needs and he will provide for them. We, on our part, have to hear his voice, follow him and enter into his eternal life. "The good shepherd came so that we might find life in all its fullness." (John 10:10)

F.W. Boreham tells the story of J.A. Gault, a chaplain in the First World War. It was his custom, when men were going into the firing line, to get them to repeat with him the opening clause of the Shepherd Psalm, ticking it off on the fingers of their left hands. The little finger represented the word The; the next finger, Lord; the middle finger, is; the index finger, my; and the thumb, shepherd. Every man was asked to mark the palm of his hand with indelible pencil to remind him of the text, and special stress was laid on the index finger - my shepherd - the finger that spoke of the personal appropriation by faith of the shepherdly care. After a battle one of Gault's young men was found, quite dead, grasping firmly with his right hand the index finger of his left. He understood and rejoiced that he had a special place in the heart of the Good Shepherd, and he clung to that sweet faith in perfect serenity to the last.

What about you? Do you have that serenity? Can you say, "The Lord is MY Shepherd?

The Rev. Ted Schroder is pastor of Amelia Chapel on Amelia Island Plantation, Florida