Branded: What’s Your Mark?

Marked initials, cattle brands, trademarks, and logos all identify that something belongs to someone. What’s your mark or identifier, and how is it visible?

Marks are everywhere. Maybe you wrote a child’s name or initials on a backpack, or you put your name on something in a fridge to mark it as yours. Perhaps you saw a logo on something you bought, or you looked for the registered trademark symbol on a product to identify if it was real or a knock-off.

To know who something belongs to is easy if you take a look, even from a distance.

What a Shepherd Has to Do with Marks and Ownership

I was recently given a book entitled A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.

The book’s author, W. Phillip Keller, “grew up and lived in East Africa, surrounded by simple native herders whose customs closely resembled those of their counterparts in the Middle East.”¹ He was also a sheep owner and rancher as a young man and brought shepherding full circle by being a lay pastor (shepherd) of a community church later on. His unique experiences have allowed him to shed light on things concerning sheep and shepherding that are, typically, not understood fully when we look at Psalm 23.

In the first chapter of the book, “The LORD Is My Shepherd”, he talked much about marks and ownership. He told how, to put his mark on his sheep, he had “to catch each ewe…and lay her ear on a wooden block, then notch it deeply with the razor-sharp edge of the knife. There was pain for both of [them]. But from [their] mutual suffering an indelible lifelong mark of ownership was made that could never be erased.”

This has stuck with me since I read it.

What’s the Significance in the Shepherd Owning and Claiming His Sheep?

If you own something and care about it, you protect your rights to it by marking it as yours. Companies and individuals go to great lengths to patent ideas, designs, names, and processes. People write on clothes, pencil cases, folders, and papers they turn in to claim things as theirs. We get beeped at stores, sometimes, and have to show a store employee our receipt, so they know that we paid for a valuable item (that it’s rightfully ours). Even our last names say we belong to someone…to our family.

In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and [as a result] believed in Him, were stamped with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit [the One promised by Christ] as owned and protected [by God].

Ephesians 1:13 AB

Jesus called Himself “the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11), and He paid a price for us, His sheep. We’re a valuable purchase, and the price was steep! And just like a shepherd earmarks the sheep he or she buys to show they belong to him, Christ bought us with a price–His blood (1 Peter 1:9)–and marks us with His Spirit to make known that we’re owned and protected by God, our Father.

I’ve Heard This Before. What’s Your Unique Takeaway?

It may not be unique, but it has been stirring in my soul for days. Mr. Keller explained in his book that, even at a distance, “it is easy to determine to whom the sheep belongs.”

We have, at times, reminded our kids that their actions not only represent (sometimes, falsely) who they are; they also represent us and our family. Even bigger than that, they represent the One they belong to, their Shepherd!

You don’t have to be up close and personal always to tell. It can be from far away.

So, I’ve been asking myself:

• What marks am I displaying? Whatever they are, do they accurately reflect the One I belong to, Who paid an extreme price for me and thought I was valuable enough to do so?
• I have the mark of His Spirit on me, but is it visible to others? Am I allowing God’s characteristics (e.g., love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) to be produced in me through His Spirit to be recognizable to those who not only have close encounters with me but see me and my actions from afar?

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to our local farmers’ market. The parking lot was crazy, and it was hard to find a place to park!

A man behind us had gotten into his vehicle, pulled out of his spot, and headed toward us, not leaving much room between his vehicle and ours.

An oncoming vehicle was dealing with a vendor’s trailer in their lane. I wanted to help and give them room to exit, so I stopped, put my vehicle in reverse, and tried to back up. The man behind me wasn’t very patient nor understanding and began “laying on his horn.” I started waving to him to back up.

I didn’t think what I did would be seen as rude…until I felt the Spirit stirring and rolled down my window to speak to the occupants of the oncoming vehicle as they safely pulled up beside me to pass. Apparently, it looked to them as if I was throwing a fit. It wasn’t until I explained what I was doing to let them pass that they said, “Oooooooh!” and wished us blessings.

I’m thankful the Spirit stirred inside me and provided an opportunity to set my intentions straight, more properly representing the One Whom I belong to. They became aware of my goal, but did the guy behind us? That situation is fresh and has made me think, in considering Whose I am, if there was anything else I could’ve done to bear my Shepherd’s mark better. I want others, if they take a look, to always see that I am my LORD’s; and that I and my God are the real deal, not a knock-off.

1. _{Keller, W. Phillip. A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Zondervan, 1970/2015.} ↩︎