HeartFelt Kids Bible

Jesus told this story to people who thought God only wanted the good and tidy ones. There was a shepherd, he said, and he had a hundred sheep. He knew them all. He knew which one was always first through the gate and which one got its head stuck, and he counted them every night.

One evening he brought them in and started counting, the way he always did. Ninety seven. Ninety eight. Ninety nine. And then he stopped, and he counted again, more slowly, and it came out the same. One of his sheep was not there.

Ninety nine out of a hundred is very nearly all of them. Most people would have shut the gate and said, well, that is a good day. But the shepherd stood there thinking about the one that was out there somewhere in the dark, on its own, and he could not do it.

So he made the ninety nine safe, and then he went back out. Over the hills he went and down into the rocky places, calling and listening, calling and listening. It got cold and it got late, and he kept going, because the one that was missing was his.

And then, somewhere out among the rocks, he heard it. One small frightened sound. He climbed to it and found his sheep, and he did not scold it and he did not drive it home in front of him. He lifted it up onto his shoulders and carried it all the way back himself.

When he got home he was not cross. He called his neighbors and said, be happy with me, I have found my sheep that was lost. And Jesus said, that is what heaven is like every time one person comes home. Not a shrug. A party. That is how God feels about you.