“What can we do wrong the day?”

“Oh those sheep are so cute!”—said no farmer ever! Tourists or Instagrammers driving around Ireland might think so as they see sheep scattered across fields or wandering scenically along the road. Those who know better, know better.

I recently saw a video of a farmer—he sounded like a Donegal man—looking at some straying sheep and uttering words of great theological insight:

“Look at them there. See what I’m tellin’ you about sheep” The camera pans to show sheep wandering through his yard. “Sheep spend their time doing things they shouldn’t be doing”

“That’s the way sheep live their life there like… What can we do wrong the day?”

A brilliant line. Bedraggled, muddy sheep, doing things they shouldn’t be doing in places they shouldn’t be.

Here’s what amuses me—it’s not just a brilliant description, it’s brilliant theology: the Bible loves to call us sheep. And city people (like I once was) think “Oh that’s cute,” and picture rolling fields, idyllic pastures, and gentle flocks.

God thinks more like the farmer, “Sheep spend their time doing things they shouldn’t be doing.” The farmer’s description of sheep life is God’s description of us: “That’s the way sheep live their life… What can we do wrong the day?”

We mightn’t put it in those words, but what sheep would? How much of our lives do we live doing our own thing, getting into various types of bother, and then trying to get out of it? There’s a line in the Bible which says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way”

So it’s not the most flattering description! And yet there are a couple of stunning surprises in the Bible in regard to this.

First of all, in John 10 Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Again, we read that and don’t even blink. “Seems reasonable” we think. Really? I once asked a few farmers: “Would you lay down your life for your sheep?” “Not at all,” they said, “You might risk harm for them, but to actively lay down your life for sheep… no way.” Yet that is exactly what Jesus says he would do—for us. He is not simply a good shepherd, but an extraordinary one by any measure.

The second thing that astonishes me is found back in Isaiah 53. In v6 we read, “We all like sheep have gone astray… but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” It is speaking about Jesus taking the punishment his people deserve. But then later we read about Jesus (v10), “though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring.” It’s easy to miss, but wonderful once you see it. As one writer puts it, “We stray as sheep; we return as children.” That’s the wonder of what God does. He transforms wandering sheep into welcomed children.

Perhaps, next time you see a sheep where it shouldn’t be, you’ll remember the line “What can we do wrong the day?”

That’s what we’re like. But it isn’t the end of the story. There is a Good Shepherd who rescues wandering, self-damaging sheep like us—and turns us into welcomed sons and daughters of God.