Stop Looking for Opponents
“I myself will search for my sheep.”
Not wait for them, nor complain about them. Not stand safely inside the fold wondering why they wandered away.
But search for them. Seek them out.
God describes His people as scattered sheep, and His response to their separation is remarkably active. He will gather them. Feed them. Bind up the injured. Strengthen the weak. Bring them home.
The Shepherd goes looking.
Ten years ago, when I first reflected on this passage, I thought immediately about the people from whom we become separated. Family members. Friends. Neighbors. Fellow Christians. People on the other side of political and denominational walls.
Today that part of the passage seems even more important to me.
We live in an age that makes separation remarkably easy. If someone offends us, we can unfriend them. Block them. Stop answering. Change churches. Find another social circle. Retreat into communities filled with people who already agree with us. And then, from the safety of our own side of the wall, we can talk about the people on the other side.
Ezekiel gives us a different image: SEARCH. SEEK.
That doesn't mean every broken relationship can or should be restored to what it once was. Some relationships require boundaries. Some people are unsafe. Reconciliation requires more than one willing participant, and love sometimes has to leave someone free to walk away. But none of that requires us to turn the person into an enemy.
That may be especially important when politics is involved. When someone says something that infuriates me, my first instinct can be to classify the person. Liberal. Conservative. MAGA. Progressive. Woke. Fundamentalist. Heretic. Bigot. Snowflake.
Once I've found the right label, I don't have to know the person anymore. I can simply oppose the category.
But what if I stopped thinking of that person primarily as a rival or opponent? What if I remembered that this is someone God is searching for too? That changes the conversation.
Perhaps instead of gathering ammunition for my next argument, I become curious. I listen. I look for whatever truth may be hiding underneath the person's anger. I remember that winning an argument while widening the distance between us may not actually be a victory.
And then there is family. . . . Always family. There is something particularly painful about becoming strangers to people with whom we share a history. Sometimes those separations are necessary, and sometimes they are beyond our ability to repair. But whenever it is possible and healthy, perhaps the Shepherd gives us our model.
Don't casually say, “Good riddance.”
Search. Seek. Remember. Leave a path home. And if someone does return, don't make the first order of business a recitation of everything they did wrong.
Look again at the Shepherd. He gathers the scattered. He binds up the injured. He strengthens the weak. He feeds His sheep.
There is plenty of time elsewhere in Scripture for correction, accountability and repentance. But before any of those things, Ezekiel gives us this picture of a God who refuses to become indifferent to His own.
Maybe that's part of God's will for our lives too: Search for His sheep, especially the one you've been calling your enemy. Especially the one you've been talking about instead of talking to. Especially the one you secretly decided wasn't worth the trouble.
Search. Seek.
And when you find them, remember what Jesus eventually told Peter:
“Feed my sheep.”
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