Shepherding Quotes

Recognizing that God has called you to function as his agent defines your task as a parent. Our culture has reduced parenting to providing care. Parents often see the task in these narrow terms. The child must have food, clothes, a bed, and some quality time.
In sharp contrast to such a weak view, God has called you to a more profound task than being only a care-provider. You shepherd your child in God's behalf. The task God has given you is not one that can be conveniently scheduled. It is a pervasive task. Training and shepherding are going on whenever you are with your children. Whether waking, walking, talking or resting, you must be involved in helping your child to understand life, himself, and his needs from a biblical perspective (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). ~ Tedd Tripp

Loden loves guns, loves to talk about them. Right now he's trying to talk about them with me, a distinctly trying experience for I keep shepherding the conversation back to dead bodies which Loden clearly doesn't enjoy very much. You would think that a man who felt comfortable extolling the virtues of hollow point bullets ("Expands to twice its size and just thumps that person.") would be okay talking about dead bodies, but apparently not. "You just cringe," he said when I mentioned the prospect of shooting into human cadaver tissue. Then he made a noise that I transcribed in my notes as olllggg. ~ Mary Roach

The fact that he might have other things to do with his time than spend it shepherding his master's head-strong, thousand-ducat-a-night anguisette through one of the most unsavory quarters of the City never crossed my mind. ~ Jacqueline Carey

From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet. Thence they arise and go abroad by night, veiled in thick mist, and utter their song with lovely voice, praising Zeus the aegis-holder and queenly Hera of Argos who walks on golden sandals and the daughter of Zeus the aegis-holder bright-eyed Athene, and Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis who delights in arrows, and Poseidon the earth-holder who shakes the earth, and reverend Themis and quick-glancing Aphrodite, and Hebe with the crown of gold, and fair Dione, Leto, Iapetus, and Cronos the crafty counsellor, Eos and great Helius and bright Selene, Earth too, and great Oceanus, and dark Night, and the holy race of all the other deathless ones that are for ever. And one day they taught Hesiod glorious song while he was shepherding his lambs under holy Helicon, and this word first the goddesses said to me - the Muses of Olympus, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis: 'Shepherds of the wilderness, wretched things of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things'. ~ Hesiod

The parent is the child's guide. This shepherding process helps a child to understand himself and the world in which he lives. The parent shepherds a child to assess himself and his responses. He shepherds the child to understand not just the "what" of the child's actions, but also the "why." As the shepherd, you want to help your child understand himself as a creature made by and for God. You cannot show him these things merely by instruction; you must lead him on a path of discovery. You must shepherd his thoughts, helping him to learn discernment and wisdom. ~ Tedd Tripp

I gave myself a few days back at home before going in to see my clients again. It was hard at first. And it stayed hard for months. To sit there quietly, hands folded in my lap, listening to them elaborate on their troubles. An old impatience returned, the kind I had experienced when I started as a therapist: the urge to search for the moments in their past that contained the key to liberating them in the present. That's why I used to do, press for more and more family history, excusing it to myself as interest and attention, when really it was a distraction from the suffering in front of me, a desire to find the passage of experience that would explain their pain away. What good plot didn't offer that? A meaning sufficient to account for the events. But as time went on, I realized that my clients' lives weren't works of art. They told themselves stories all the time, but the stories trailed off, got forgetting, and then repeated - distractions themselves, oftentimes, from the feelings they were somewhere taught would damn them or wreck them.

It had taken me a long time to see how strong this desire for an answer was. I had to train myself to notice how it arose, and how to put it aside. Because if all I did was scour what a person said to me each week for clues, I wouldn't do her much good. I had to give up my own need to cure if I was going to stand any chance of shepherding her toward acceptance of who she already was.

I never did that for Michael. I ~ Adam Haslett

Most of all, I like the quiet, rounded tugs. They remind me of women. As I watch them work I see them as kindly, no-fuss boats which patiently tend much larger, grander and more important-looking ships. They make sure these ships get to the right place as the right time, shepherding them with a pull or a push as needed. Their power is not immediately obvious but it is there - inside. I watch them a lot and never tire of seeing their unsung but absolutely essential work. The silent strong women of the sea. ~ Hazel Hawke

Our Lord Jesus Christ made the merciful shepherding of His sheep the proof of love for Himself (cf. Jn. 21:15-17). He denounces as 'wicked' the servant who refused to pardon the debt of his fellow servant and who did not share in even the smallest way, the immense kindness that was bestowed on himself; that he should suffer the fate which he dealt is plainly shown to be right (cf. Mt. 18:32-33). ~ Pope Dionysius

You are trying your best to make sense of a whole new world and a whole new self. It's scary to take steps towards independence and I wish I could help you feel softer towards yourself while you explore what that actually means. The dynamic nature of your experience right now is completely normal and those high highs and low lows are a ride that you will get used to and learn to appreciate. I know you are overwhelmed by your own emotions a lot these days , and that makes you angry with yourself. But a bird's eye view shows that there is a bottleneck building up, shepherding you toward your own discovery of songwriting as a part of your essence, not just a hobby. And you aren't alone. You are about to find a maze of people who share a love of the thing that will be your lifeboat: music. ~ Sara Bareilles

it seems best to view deacons as servants who do whatever is necessary to allow the elders to accomplish their God-given calling of shepherding and teaching the church. ~ Matt Schmucker

Music is not the entire place of worship - it is only a vehicle to be used by God. In order for us to find a place of encounter, we also have to find a place of security and safety. It's the role of a shepherd to lead each thirsty sheep to clean waters - shepherding is a big deal in the Bible. And yet, so much attention nowadays is given to music resource that we are not encouraging music leaders to excel in their actual task - which is more than just singing great songs. ~ Tanya Riches

All night the earth and the heavens followed their usual arrangements. Stars passed: an immense tide hung over them. A silent sea raced back with the sun, its wave turn-over small, delicate and comfortless. The most glorious of all stars hung above the sun's threshold and went out. An hour later the sun governed the earth again, mist-chasing, flower-opening, bird-rousing, ghost-driving, spirit-shepherding back out the various gates of sleep. ~ Mary Butts

Our brains turn into simple signal-processing units, quickly shepherding information into consciousness and then back out again. ~ Nicholas Carr

When a church is spending more of its budget on media than shepherding, something is out of whack. We have gotten things twisted around. ~ Charles R. Swindoll

It's hard to get a great idea sometimes. When you get a good one and you have a good script, you want to keep shepherding it to make it happen. ~ Chris Henchy

Thank goodness they are curious! It's a sign of healthy minds. And while it may be obvious, it's our responsibility to educate them to the idea that romancing the unknown is attended by myriad possibilities, too, shepherding them through those heady periods of urge and instinct when they think they can soar, and deliver them, we hope whole, to a place where perspective begins to reign, where they know that the groggy old bear at the zoo will instantly wake the moment you step inside the cage. ~ Chang-rae Lee