Ellis is four. He has a stuffed Simba (from Lion King) on his bed. He sleeps in the top bunk of a grey house-shaped bed. He has a window to look out and everything! Each night, when I went in last week, to tuck him in, I’d make up some wild story about how Simba had disobeyed; he had gone too close to the edge of a cliff or he had jumped on a barge in the river. He disobeyed through the week in a plethora of ways. Each night, Samba would get a sound spanking and he’d have to sit in the corner and face the wall until Ellis woke up in the morning. Each night, Ellis would ask, in all seeming sincerity, “Why?…Why does he always disobey?” Then we’d have a little talk about the folly of disobedience and Ellis would affirm his own resolve to not disobey.
On the last night I was there, He began to talk about the sheep and the goats during our little Simba-time, in the vein of Matthew 25. He said “Samba is really just one of the goats.”
I said, “Well, YOU are one of the sheep, though. You are an obey-er. You always do what Mama and Dada say! I know you will never be a goat.”
Ellis said, “Well sometimes I cross over into the goats.”
I responded “Well, I don’t think so. You are always trying to obey. I watch you do that every day. You especially want to obey God.”
He persisted. “But sometimes I am a goat. Like tonight, I was supposed to be getting in my bed and I went back in there.”
He was right. He did venture back down the hall…to ask for one final drink, or for something he forgot to show me or for permission to have Papa come read a book or something. He had gotten into trouble and maybe his mama had seen one little glimpse of a billygoat horn growing out of those curls.
We talked a while more and I assured Ellis that I know he will always make the choice to be a sheep and we will all be in heaven together.
Just an fyi for all of us who have been sheep for a lot of years now: There’s no accidental “crossing-over” from sheep status to being a goat. If you are a sheep, you cannot accidentally join the goat-herd. It takes much more than a conscientious slip-up to join the goats. If you are walking in the light, as Christ is in the light, the blood of Jesus keeps you clean and in the right flock (1 John 1:7).
Further, there are no half-sheep-half goats. You are not an in-between spiritual species. If you are not a full-fledged sheep, you are on the left-hand—a goat. He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left (Matthew 25:33).
I just want to be a sheep.