The good news for me in today’s gospel is that we are precious to God--so precious that whenever we get lost, God will do whatever it takes to bring us back into the loving relationship God has prepared for us. One sheep out of a hundred, but so precious to the shepherd in the parable that he searches hither and yon, uphill and down until he is able to bring the lost one back into the fold with the others who didn’t wander off. Sometimes I try to imagine what life must have felt like from the sheep’s perspective. There I am in the pasture with the shepherd and the other sheep, contentedly grazing from one luscious-looking clump of grass to the next, when all of a sudden I realize I don’t hear the others nearby. I look around, and I don’t see any other sheep. Where are they? Where is the shepherd who cares for us? Where am I? Oh, no, I feel lost. I am afraid. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I panic and run off in what I hope will be the right direction, but I find myself caught, unable to get myself untangled. Just when I am about to give up in despair over the mess I’ve gotten myself into, I hear the shepherd calling my name, and I know I am safe at last. When the shepherd spies my predicament, he runs to me and carefully dislodges me from my entanglements, murmuring encouragement all the while. He gathers me up in his arms and carries me back to the rest of the flock. As we go, he tells me over and over how worried he was about me, how delighted he is to have found me, how thankful he is that I am alive and well, how precious I am to him, how he’ll never leave me alone, untended, because he wants me with him always. Can you relate to such a profound experience? I think Paul could as he describes himself in our epistle lesson as the foremost of sinners saved by the grace of Christ Jesus. Studying the Torah at the feet of Gamaliel, zealous as a Pharisee to root out the followers of the Way, Paul didn’t realize how entangled he was in doing things his own way until he heard the Good Shepherd call him by name on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-20). Most of us are not struck blind by the glory of God when we wander off on our own, but if we take the time to listen with open hearts, I think we will hear God call us by name and say, “You are precious, and I love you.”(Is.43:4) May we ever respond with the words of the hymn: “Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.”