Doctor Andrew Bonar told me how, in the Highlands of Scotland, often a sheep would wander off onto the rocks and get stuck. The grass on these mountains is very sweet and as the sheep like it, they will jump down ten or twelve feet to reach it, and then they can't jump back again.
The sheep may be there for days, but the shepherd, though he hears them bleating in distress, will wait until they have eaten all the grass and are so faint they cannot stand. Only then will he put a rope around him and pull that sheep up out of the jaws of death.
'Why don't they go down there when the sheep first gets there?" I asked.
"Ah" he said, "they are so very foolish they would dash right over the precipice and be killed if they did!"
And that is the way with men, they won't go back to God till they have no friends and have lost everything. If you are a wanderer, I come to tell you that the Good Shepherd will bring you back the moment you have given up trying to save yourself and are willing to let Him save you His own way.