The Lord who teaches

WORD 2day: Saturday, 4th week in Ordinary time

February 5, 2022: 1 Kings 3:4-13; Mark 6:30-34

As soon as we hear that the Lord is our shepherd, we think of a God who provides, who protects and who pastures! Today Jesus presents to us a dimension of the Shepherd that many a times we do not see, rather we do not wish to see or recognise. A Shepherd does not only feed or fend for us, but also teaches us! When Jesus saw the people as sheep without a shepherd, he set about teaching them. 

Solomon understood the importance of the Lord who teaches, the Lord who instructs what is right and what is wrong, the Lord who grants the wisdom to discern between good and evil. Following his great example the Word inspires us to pray: Lord teach me your statutes. The Shepherd who teaches, does not merely do things for us, but prepares us to do the right thing at the right time. 

We live in a time of confusion - everything is being justified; even the worst of criminals seems to have a justification for what they are upto, and the righteous and the just ones are taken to task by the forces with hidden agenda. Good seems to be on the losing side, and the evil so triumphant and vociferous; the monetarily affluent and the powerful seem to have every bit of this world under their thumb; do we give up? 

The Word inspires us today to hold on to the Lord who teaches, and the Lord shall prepare us to understand what is good and noble, at any point of time. When we discard everything else as secondary before the Lord and the Lord's wisdom, the Shepherd shall lead us in the path of righteousness and peace and the Lord shall teach us, as God's own people!