The Good Shepherd?

Teaching Godly Play to 9/1o year olds has been an incredible joy.  They never cease to challenge and amaze me.  Take, for example, what happened yesterday.  I was telling the story of the Good Shepherd--in comparison to the Ordinary Shepherd, the Good Shepherd leads his sheep to food and water, guides them through places of danger, and would give his life for them if they are lost or in trouble.  Then I got this question:

"So when the sheep come to places of danger, the good shepherd leads them through, right?"

"That's what I think, yes," I said.

"Well," the student went on, "why does the good shepherd even lead the sheep to the dangerous places at all?  If he was really good, wouldn't he help the sheep avoid the dangerous places entirely?  Also, if he's so good, how did that other sheep get lost in the first place?"

That, friends, is why I had to find a way to talk about theodicy in my sunday school class.  Way to go, little dude.

Of course, in true Godly Play style, I directed the question back at the class (a pedagogical technique that really served me well as I was struggling to speak).  This group of 9 and 1o yr. olds decided that it wasn't so important whether or not the good shepherd brought the sheep to the place of danger to begin with; what matters is that the good shepherd goes back to carry you out, where the ordinary shepherd just leaves.  From the mouth of babes, right?

I got a phone call today with some news about two people in my life.  Both are young fathers.  The first part of the call was good news: one young father, a family friend, had his near-terminal diagnosis reversed, and while he's not out of the woods yet, he is miraculously beating all the medical odds that were set against him.  The other young father, my cousin, who was suffering from the same illness with the same odds set against him, died today.  

So who is God?  The ordinary shepherd, or the good shepherd?  And if he's good, how does he let us get "lost" in the first place?  On behalf of the wife and kids of my friend who is surviving, I rejoice in my good shepherd God.  I am in awe of the loving God who can rescue people from the thicket of illness and carry them back on His shoulders safely home.  But where was the good shepherd for my cousin?  Do his wife, children, and family see God as the ordinary shepherd who saw danger, and left his sheep behind?

One of the things I found most poignant about the question my little friends asked in class yesterday is that, I imagine, that will be the first of many times they ask that question in their lives.  And I imagine that, each time, it will be harder and more painful to see the good shepherd God when life, grief, and loss invade their consciousness in new ways.  

In the end, I know that the resolution to these questions are not mine to find--those decisions  always belongs to that person and God.  So my only prayer now is that, somehow, the Good Shepherd God might meet my friends and family who are left speechless in the wake of their loss.  I pray that, even though I may not be able to wrap my mind around it, they would feel God not as the one who abandoned them, but as the one who is carrying them in His arms safely home.