The Journey to the High Country

By Neil Earle

Our congregation just finished its fourth Book Club. For a few months we enjoyed reading and discussing Werner Keller’s very popular memoir/devotional titled “A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.”

For anyone who hasn’t read it, it’s well worth the trouble. Even a rereading will reveal many precious truths about the Christian relationship with God.

Some of the inspired phraseology in Psalm 23 can really reach out and “grab” you, as we say. After a long hard week, the thought “he restoreth my soul” (in the KJV) can be very appealing. One of Keller’s most interesting points is what he describes as the most difficult part of the shepherd’s role – moving the flock. Keller explains that sheep are such creatures of habit that left to themselves they will simply overgraze and eat away the choicest, richest pastureland. That is why they have to be moved – often. Weekly at first and then the long spring trek into the high country for a long summer’s grazing.

Predators and Hazards

But, says, Keller, nothing is more hazardous. The route to the high country leads through the dark valleys where predators and dark ravines and other natural hazards often lie in the way. As he says:

“Casting my mind’s eye back over the years that I kept sheep, no other single aspect of the ranch operations commanded more of my careful attention than this moving of the sheep. It literally dominated all my decisions…As soon as the point was reached where I felt the maximum benefit for both sheep and land was not being met, the sheep were moved to a fresh field. On the average this meant they were put on fresh ground almost every week” (Keller, page 63, 1970 version).

Keller well knew of what he wrote. Most of his life was spent running sheep ranches in British Columbia, Northwestern United States and in Kenya. He was familiar with the lessons and metaphors that flowed from King David’s words in Psalm 23, especially the idea that both sheep and shepherd were on a journey:

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters…he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me (Psalms 23:2-4).

Note the action verbs in this sequence – leads, guides, walk through. The sheep in this psalm have a good shepherd and they are kept on the move. The analogy, of course, points beyond Keller and King David watching his flocks to the child of God being led and guided by the Shepherd of our souls (Hebrews 13:20).

Yes, Psalm 23 has become the most popular psalm in the Psalter because the analogies to our Christian journey are so easy to spot. They almost leap right out at you. Let’s consider a few of them.

Free from Anxiety

Most readers enjoy the stately simplicity of Psalm 23:2, “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.” We are often unaware that there is much demanded from the shepherd in this short stanza. Both Keller’s book and another popular devotional on Psalm 23, the rather ornate “Song of Our Syrian Guest” by William Allen Knight (1904), touch on the effort expended by the good shepherd in this one verse. For one thing sheep are such timid creatures that they will not lie down or drink till all their fears are subsided. For another, the shepherd must be constantly on the lookout for good water.

As Knight explains, the sheep’s journey as his mental backdrop: “All through the day’s roaming the shepherd keeps one thing in mind. He must lead his flock to a drinking place…streams are few in the shepherd country of Bible lands. The shepherd does not rely on them. Even where streams are found, their beds and banks are usually broken and their flow rough. Sheep are timid and fear a current of water, as they well may for they are easily carried downstream because of their wool.”

Keller writes about having to go ahead of the sheep even before the journey begins to the high country. The careful shepherd marks out suitable drinking places or repairing cisterns that the thirsty sheep can drink from. This often means hard manual labor – moving rocks, damming up water from a bend in the stream, and beating back the bushes. “Never did he take his flock where he had not already been before,” writes Keller, “Always he had gone ahead to look over the country with care.”

This relentless care of the good shepherd as he moves the flock from one range to another reminds us of Jesus’ statement in John 10:11, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” In our fellowship these past twenty years or so we have had to have faith that the Good Shepherd was indeed leading us to fresh streams of living water. Through all the ups and downs of radical doctrinal change, of fundamental revisions in worship, name changes, and innovations in congregational leadership – through all of this we had to know our Good Shepherd was there, leading us to higher ground. The high country leads through the dark valleys and we have seen plenty of those with the defection of friends and relatives and all the other shocks of a church in radical transition.

But through it all Christ was there, leading us in the paths of righteousness, right relationship and right doctrine, sustaining us with clear pure living water. Thank God for our Good Shepherd.

Rods and Wolves

As William Allen Knight wrote years ago, sometime even the right paths have deadly perils in their way. He relates a strange but true story from Middle Eastern shepherding:

“Sometimes, in spite of all the care of the shepherd and his dogs, a wolf will get into the very midst of the flock. The sheep are wild with fright. They run and leap and make it impossible to get at the foe in the midst, who at that very moment may be fastening his teeth in the throat of a helpless member of the flock. But the shepherd is with then. ..He leaps to a rock or hillock that he may be seen and heard. The he lifts his voice in along call, something like a wolf’s cry: Oooh! Ooh!

“On hearing this, the sheep remember the shepherd; they heed his voice; and strange to tell, the poor timid creatures, which were helpless with terror before, instantly rush with all their strength into a solid mass. The pressure is irresistible; the wolf is overcome; frequently he is crushed to death, while the shepherd stands there on a rock crying, ‘Ooh! Ooh!’

This vivid description dramatizes the expression “I will fear no evil for you are with me.” It also makes us think of Jesus’ words: “I know my sheep and my sheep know me…They will never follow a stranger because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice” (John 10: 14,5). Psalm 23 also mentions the shepherd’s rod which is designed to beat away wolves and other predators in the brush as King David illustrated so well (1 Samuel 17:34-35). The rod for enemies while the shepherd’s staff or crook is used to curl around wayward lambs, extricate stubborn sheep form dangerous rocks they have managed to get out on or pick up tender ewes and life them across a stream.

And the other point this reminds us of is the importance of staying together. Many of us reading these words have experienced calls to other “start-up” churches or appeals to walk away from our own fellowship and follow someone else’s doctrinal aberrations. Wile we don’t like to categorize anyone as a wolf or a predator, most of us reading these words have had to listen even more intently to the shepherd’s voice these past 15-20 years. We’ve had to be tuned in to the right spiritual frequency. This is where faith – the gift of God – comes in and sees us through yet again. By God’s help and the insight from his Spirit, we hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and we have become, says Knight, more than conquerors, even when the issue seemed very closely joined indeed.

Feasting Spiritually

Psalm 23 then moves on to a passage usually overlooked or not clearly understood” “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” That table aptly describes the high country itself. As Keller notes, the Spanish world for high mountain range is “mesa.” “Mesa means table because of the flat shape of the rich, lush fertile high country. Table Mountain behind Cape Town, South Africa is an obvious example.

On the high country lies the best pasture, ideal for growing sheep. That has been the whole point of moving the flock in the first place. Good grazing along the way and delicious summer fare on the fat pastures of the upcountry – this is the healthy sheep’s life cycle. True to type, our Good Shepherd has led our fellowship into some excellent pasture. We have learned so much more about God’s real, intrinsic Nature, about our God being three in one in a perichoretic unity that not only embraces the Father, Son and Holy Spirit but also extends out to include the whole human family should they accept it.

This is rich spiritual food even if it has not always been easily to spiritually “digest.” But the main direction is clear: God though his incarnation in Christ has shown us most vividly that he is on the side of the human race, his creation. God is not mad at us. He is working towards a salvation that will bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:7). Knowing this God’s sheep can reflect the attitudes that round out this most beloved psalm: “My cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:8-9).

And just at the end comes the strong indication that this relationship with the Good Shepherd stretches out beyond death, beyond this life, into eternity itself: “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” As Keller would say, “I like this ranch. Who’d want to leave it?”