THE WIND, sweeping down from White Mesa, blew cold against the Indian boy, Hosteen Nez, as he herded his sheep and started homeward. When he had penned up his sheep in the corral he found that one was missing. Where had he lost it?
He looked about the hogan, a round, low, one-roomed hut, built of logs and plastered with mud, the only home the boy had known dung his fourteen years, and it looked very pleasant and comfortable to him now. His mother was just taking some Navajo bread off the fire.
“Let me have it quick, I must go back; I have lost a sheep,” he said.
The heavy clouds above White Mesa told him that a storm was already raging in the mountains and would soon come down the valley.
Where could that one sheep have strayed from the others? The boy was puzzled as he stumbled over the darkening trail, trying to recall the day’s stopping places. Surely it must have been in the Wash where he had taken them to drink earlier in the day.
The wind that had quickened to a gale seemed to cut through his clothing, and flurries of sand half blinded him. Oh if he could only find his poor lost lamb!
The clouds piled darker over the mountains. There was an occasional flash of light, followed by a heavy roll of thunder. He longed to be at home, but a Navajo boy is not easily separated from his sheep, and so he plunged on and on toward the edge of the Wash. Straining his eyes through the dark, he called again and again. Then a faint bleat that only an Indian’s ear could catch, and without thought of danger to himself, Hosteen Nez was struggling toward a helpless bit of life caught in the treacherous quicksand. Experienced as he was in the ways of the desert, all his strength and skill were needed in that fight to save the lamb, but he won: and once again he struggled wearily up the sandy bank with the lamb flung over his shoulder. The rain now came driving in sheets over the valley. It was not easy to carry the half-grown lamb, with its wet, muddy fleece in his arms, partly protected by his coat, but he knew it must have warmth soon or his labor would be in vain. In remembering its helplessness he somewhat forgot his own discomfort and fear, and struggled on.
More than two hours later, weary to the point of exhaustion, dripping, shivering, with the fear of the thunder still in his heart, he left behind him the darkness and storm and entered the shelter and welcome warmth of the hogan.
Near him, in sleepy content, lay the little lamb, its troubles over, its strength renewed. He watched it idly wondering at his feeling of affection for it. Queer what a fellow would brave and endure for a little helpless animal. It was not worth much money, but somehow he liked it; he had paid a heavy price for its life. It was his before it was lost, but it was doubly his now; he had bought it back from death with the price of his own labor and strength.
Months later Hosteen Nez lounged at the nearest Trading Post, the door opened and a missionary entered and began talking in Navajo. What queer ideas the white man had, and how funny some of his words sounded. But what was that a God Who sought sinful lost men as a Navajo would seek a lost sheep “What man of you... Both not leave the ninety and nine... and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” Luke 15:4,54What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. (Luke 15:4‑5).
Hosteen Nez leaned eagerly forward. Again he felt himself facing the bitter wind; he saw the pitiful, struggling lamb in the quicksand; he felt the joy of its rescue from the rain and darkness and rushing of the waters from the mountain heights, that in a moment more would have doomed the helpless little animal.
" ‘All we’ — white men, Navajos, big men and women, boys and girls — like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on Him Jesus Christ, God’s Son — the iniquity of us all’ (Isa. 53:66All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)).
“God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, came into the world to save sinners, and He not only found them but He bought their safety, by dying for them — giving His own precious life for them.”
Hosteen Nez had always thought the white man’s God too strange to understand. But the story of such love, how easy to understand, and so good. Could it possibly be — yes it must be — true!
That day the tender Shepherd found Hosteen Nez. Has He found you, dear friend!
If you want Jesus Christ as your Shepherd and His gift of eternal life, say to Him from the depths of your heart: “Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner and need a Saviour. I take Thee just now to be my Saviour from sin and eternal death.”
ML-11/18/1973