Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1124 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Who is Your Hero? – Meditation Monday


Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.  Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.  Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1124 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday.  Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy.  For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection.  You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word, and in prayer.  It is a time, to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body.  As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you too will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind. 

From sports celebrities to movie stars, to those who we refer to as superheroes, we all have those who we look to as heroes.  Those that we dream of being like.

In today’s meditation let us consider:
Who is Your Hero?
 Growing up, and still to this day, I enjoy watching westerns.  The wild wild west with its vast paries and towns that are loosely regulated.   The symbol of that time was the cowboy, every young man it seems wanted to emulate that cowboy.  The hero of the west to many would be symbolized with being a cowboy.

A thousand head of cattle passes behind him. A thousand miles of trail lie before him. A thousand women would love to hold him. But none do. None will. He lives to drive cattle, and he drives cattle to live. He is honest in poker and quick with a gun. Hard riding. Slow-talking. His best friend is his horse, and his strength is his grit.

He needs no one. He is a cowboy. The American hero.When you think about the Bible, who is your hero?  Possibly King David who killed Goliath.  Maybe its Gideon, who fought thousand of Midianites, with only 300 men who were armed with a trumpet and a torch.  There is another type of person who is the true hero of the Bible.  An occupation, like the cowboy, also takes care of animals.  Behold a hero in the Bible: the shepherd.

On the surface, he appears similar to the cowboy. He, too, is rugged. He sleeps where the jackals howl and works where the wolves prowl. Never off duty. Always alert. Like the cowboy, he makes his roof the stars and the pasture his home.

But that is where the similarities end.

The shepherd loves his sheep. It's not that the cowboy doesn't appreciate the cow; it's just that he doesn't know the animal. He doesn't even want to. Have you ever seen a picture of a cowboy caressing a cow? Have you ever seen a shepherd caring for a sheep? Why the difference?

Simple. The cowboy leads the cow to slaughter. The shepherd leads the sheep to be shorn. The cowboy wants the meat of the cow. The shepherd wants the wool of the sheep. And so they treat the animals differently.

The cowboy drives the cattle. The shepherd leads the sheep.

A herd has a dozen cowboys. A flock has one shepherd.

The cowboy wrestles, brands, herds, and ropes. The shepherd leads, guides, feeds, and anoints.

The cowboy knows the name of the trail hands. The shepherd knows the name of the sheep.The cowboy whoops and hollers at the cows. The shepherd calls each sheep by name.