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One of the most important boundaries that shepherd leaders need to establish—especially when contending with biting sheep—is the protection of their family. Check out this clip from The Craig and Greg Show.
You can watch the full episode in which Greg and I talk about some of the principles in When Sheep Biteby clicking here.
Please pick up a copy of When Sheep Bite for yourself by clicking here.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
Anyone who has been verbally or emotionally attacked needs time to recover. Your self-care is absolutely essential to your personal health and the health of the people with whom you live and work. Your pain will eventually become their pain if you remain in a bruised and weakened place.
Chapter 12 in my book When Sheep Bite is entitled ‘Self-care is Not Selfish.’ In that chapter I wrote—
When you are recovering from biting sheep, you will need to be very intentional about self-care. I said earlier that self-care is not selfish. What is selfish is self-centeredness and self-reliance. When you think, “I cannot possibly take a break right now; too many people need me—besides, how will the work get done if I step away,” you are attempting to be self-reliant. This is a natural response, but it doesn’t give us the supernatural, refreshing oxygen that comes from sabbathing with Jesus.
This isn’t to diminish the importance of the true Sabbath Day, and I am not saying that sabbathing can be anything you want it to be. For Jesus, it was time alone with His Father—both set times and spontaneous times. But sometimes you will need a nap (like Elijah) or a meal with a trusted friend (as the disciples had with Jesus in Mark 6:30-32). These sabbathing breaks have a singular agenda: To get you to the place physically and emotionally where you can concentrate on your prayer time. After all, it’s hard to receive refreshing from God when you cannot keep your eyes open or your thoughts from straying.
You can check out the article I wrote for Influence magazine here, and then pick up a copy of When Sheep Bite to help your recovery time. Check out what the public ministry of Jesus teaches us about the healthy practice of sabbathing.
I also recommend these related posts and videos about self-care:
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When you’ve been hurt, you probably want someone to tell you that it was all the other person’s fault. That’s what you may want, but a true friend will tell you what you need to hear.
My book When Sheep Bite is all about recovering after difficulties—whether they were created by your mistakes or someone else’s mistakes. In the Introduction to my book I wrote:
I want to give you what I wanted when this happened to me: empathy, insight, a helpful perspective, and a manual of help that God has provided in the Bible. I don’t want to try to one-up your story of pain, because I’m confident that no one could truly know how deeply you’ve been hurt. But I do want to give you some assurance that I know what I’m talking about. …
Your pain and your circumstances are unique. Your pain is real, and it is incomparable to anyone else’s pain. But the biblical principles that God revealed to me—those things that helped me heal and the thoughts I want to share with you—are applicable for any shepherd. These tried-and-true principles can help you not just survive this pain but thrive in spite of this pain. I would say to you something that C.S. Lewis wrote, “Think of me as a fellow-patient in the same hospital who, having been admitted a little earlier, could give some advice.”
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My book When Sheep Bite is a manual of help for church leaders who have been hurt by the very sheep they are attempting to help. This book was birthed from a very painful chapter in my own ministry.
But as dark as that time was, there was a ray of light that helped me to smile during the dark times and for years and years afterwards. Here is an excerpt from the chapter ‘Cry Before Your Confront’ in When Sheep Bite—
We used to have a funny saying in our family. Our puppy would be straining to get free and one of us would cry out, “Release the hound!”
After reading the previous chapter about imprecatory prayers, and hopefully putting that into practice, I hope you felt some relief from your anger. But when you read my reminder that David’s “Get ‘em, God!” cry was for God’s ears only, perhaps you were a little disappointed. Maybe you were hoping for someone to give you a green light to “release the hound” on those biting, kicking, and wayward sheep.
Wouldn’t it be so wonderful to unleash something—anything!—on those difficult sheep? As shepherds, we have so many ways we can dress up our unleashed hounds in biblical-sounding language. Maybe a righteous rebuke like the psalmist recorded: “You rebuke the arrogant, who are accursed, those who stray from Your commands” (Psalm 119:21). Or perhaps a well-timed prophetic thunderbolt like when Samuel was praying and “the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic” (1 Samuel 7:10). Or even a strategic lightning strike from God’s throne as when the soldiers from King Ahaziah came to forcibly take Elijah to the king (2 Kings 1:11-12).
One of my favorite prayers is a prayer of David’s that is given added emphasis since it is recorded twice in the Scripture (2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18)—
In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice; my cry came before Him, into His ears. The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because He was angry. Smoke rose from His nostrils; consuming fire came from His mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under His feet. … Out of the brightness of His presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot His arrows and scattered the enemy, with great bolts of lightning He routed them. (Psalm 18:6-9, 12-14)
Wow, how good it must have felt for David to unleash these words! And yet we still see that they were words only for God’s ears, spoken when David was alone with the Almighty God. Isn’t there something we can say or do to our obstinate sheep? Yes, there is, but there is something we need to be reminded of first.
After a particularly grueling day of being bitten, kicked, and attacked by the angry sheep in my pasture, I came home and announced, “Tomorrow is ‘Be Kind to Craig Owens Day!” While driving home and licking my wounds, I had determined that I needed a day off—a day to unplug from all of the madness and make sure I was taking care of myself.
Let me add a very important truth here. In fact, it’s so important that I’m going to print it in bold letters: Self-care is not selfish! Far too many shepherds think that taking time off to care for themselves, especially in the midst of all of the chaos, is a selfish thing to do.
Selfish is different. Selfishness is self-centered. Selfishness is saying, “I’m going to take care of myself and I don’t care what happens to others while I’m doing what I want to do.” Self-care is a strategic withdrawal to take care of myself so that I can return to take care of others. It is like the instructions on an airplane to put your own oxygen mask on first before you try to help a small child with their mask. If I pass out, I’m no good to anyone else. Just as Jesus “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16), we must find times to care for ourselves so that we are strengthened to help others when we return to the fray. This concept of self-care is so vital that I have dedicated all of Chapter 12 to explaining this idea to you in more depth.
My family still celebrates the Be Kind to Craig Owens Day “holiday” but we mainly remember it because of something else that happened in our family.
On this inaugural event, I planned a day of reading, praying, walking, and recuperating. I silenced my phone and withdrew for that entire Friday. After a nice evening with my family, I decided to extend my self-care time into Saturday. My daughter and I went out to breakfast, and because we both enjoy animals so much, we decided to stop into a new pet store and play with the puppies for a while.
Almost instantly, both of us were captivated by a very special dog. There was something about her that drew us to her. In short order, we were on the phone with my wife and my sons asking them to join us at the pet store. We ended up walking out of the store that morning with a new addition to our family.
My wife later remarked that this puppy was the best irresponsible decision we ever made. Part of the reason this was true is that this puppy became my constant companion. I took her to my office with me so that I would have a source of unconditional love to offset all of the brutal attacks I was absorbing.
When John Bradford saw a cartful of men going off to Tyburn to be hanged for their crimes, he said to a friend, “There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God.” When I stopped to think what was different between my behavior and the behavior of these biting sheep, I realized it was only the grace of God that had kept me from descending into the same ugly behavior. That’s when I decided to name our new puppy Grace. I wanted to say that name over and over and over again. I desperately needed to be reminded of God’s grace for me. I also needed to be reminded that God wanted my biting sheep to know His grace too.
When we cried out, “Release the hound,” it was because Grace was straining at her leash to overwhelm someone with her love. She wanted nothing more than to show them how much she welcomed them into her presence.
I’ll be honest with you: When some of my biting sheep came storming into my office to berate me for something and Grace wanted to run to them with love and acceptance, I wanted to scold her and keep her back. This, I think, was the attitude of the older brother when his wayward brother returned home and was lovingly welcomed back into the fold by their father (Luke 15:11-32). But when I paused to think of God’s amazing grace that “saved a wretch like me,” I was reminded that God’s grace also wants to restore other wayward, obstinate, unreasonable sheep.
Our annual reminder of this event is really remembering our dog Grace’s “Gotcha Day.” It’s our annual reminder that grace is best seen in times and places that it is least expected.
If you are a church leader, please pick up a copy of When Sheep Bite to help you on your healing journey. And if I can be of assistance to you, please get in touch with me.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
The apostle Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth show two things: a lot of correction and a lot of love. In fact, it’s in the middle of some correction and redirection about the misuse of spiritual gifts that Paul gives us the quintessential definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13.
Paul also wrote, “For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you” (2 Corinthians 2:4).
The truth does need to be spoken to wayward sheep, but it has to be birthed in love and spoken in love or else it will alienate more than help. People don’t care to listen to my counsel or correction until they know how much I truly care for them.
There needs to be a connection before attempting the correction.
I have an entire chapter in my book When Sheep Bite on this topic. Here’s an excerpt—
It is possible that our grace-filled response to our biting sheep may make the difference to their eternal home. The apostle Paul told Timothy that those sheep who were out of line were trapped by the devil, and unless Timothy did something those sheep may never break free—
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)
For some reason many shepherd leaders have made “confrontation” a dirty word, or have sullied its usefulness by confronting in an ungodly way. One thing that will help us handle confrontation the right way is to remember why we confront: The goal of confrontation is restoration, not destruction!
There is a cliché that says, “Once bitten, twice shy.” As I mentioned earlier, after we’ve been bitten we need to allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts to point out anything in us that may have contributed to such a painful outburst from that sheep. Perhaps after doing all of that you attempted to confront a sheep and it didn’t go so well. As a result, you are now a bit shy to confront another wayward sheep. Dick Brogden wrote:
“Experience so easily leads us to cynicism. Information too easily leads to pain. Leadership often makes us jaded because we’ve seen so much junk, all the effects of broken people breaking people. … A strong heart determines that it will stay soft, that it will absorb hurt, disappointment, and reality, and yet believe that God can redeem people and circumstances.”
Handled correctly, confrontation can lead to restoration, a deeper intimacy, and newfound maturity. Handled incorrectly, and, well, let’s just say it can get very ugly!
I imagine we have all heard stories of the fallout from confrontation in another pasture, or perhaps we know the painful consequences in our own pastures. But let’s try for a moment to put those past experiences or secondhand stories out of our minds and take a fresh look at how to handle confrontation.
Samuel was going to be sent by God to confront King Saul about the sin he had committed. Look at this passage: “Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: ‘I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from Me and has not carried out My instructions.’ Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the Lord all that night” (1 Samuel 15:10-11).
Did you catch how Samuel responded? He cried out to the Lord all that night.
Perhaps if we, as godly under-shepherds, cried before we confronted the results might be more healthy. Billy Graham noted, “Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.” (from Chapter 5 ‘Cry Before You Confront’)
If you have some difficult but necessary words to speak to someone, take time to cry before you confront. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the most loving way to handle this situation. Cry before you confront, and may your tears soften your heart to speak truthful words saturated in your love for God and your love for this wayward saint.
Please pick up a copy of When Sheep Bite to learn more biblical strategies for handling biting sheep and for healing from biting sheep. If I can be of help to you, please get in touch with me.
P.S. You may also be interested in a whole series about growing and showing our love called Loving the Unlovable.
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Imagine you just preached a sermon that was so Holy Spirit-anointed that crowds of people turned to Jesus. This kind of activity made a big stir in town, and some supposedly religious people became quite jealous of the fruit of your ministry. In their jealousy, they begin slandering you to others in town, causing a huge backlash against your ministry.
How would you respond? Would you give those jealous slanderers a piece of your mind? Would you give them some of their own medicine? Would you leave town?
The scenario I described isn’t make believe; it actually happened to Paul and Barnabas in the city of Iconium (Acts 14:1-2). In the very next verse, Luke describes Paul and Barnabas’ response: some biblical translations use the word “so” and some use the word “therefore” to indicate the natural connection—
“So Paul and Barnabas stayed on there for a long time, speaking freely and fearlessly and boldly in the Lord” (v. 3).
They didn’t fight their slanderers nor did they flee from Iconium; they remained faithful to the task to which God had called them!
Fighting and fleeing are natural responses.
Faithfulness, however, is a supernatural response.
God honored the faithfulness of Paul and Barnabas by demonstrating His own supernatural power through them: “[God] continued to bear testimony to the Word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be performed by their hands” (v. 3b).
The scenario I described isn’t just something from long ago history, but it was a scene from my personal history too. In the Introduction of my book When Sheep Bite I wrote—
I cannot pinpoint exactly what triggered their outburst or when their attacks started, but it seemed like almost overnight their teeth were bared. I was completely taken aback! I had assumed that seeing the new life and vitality in this pasture would be celebrated. When the exact opposite happened, I must admit that my knee-jerk reactions probably weren’t very Christlike. …
This was something I never imagined. I never saw anything like this in my home, nor had I experienced anything like this in my associate pastor’s role. In fact, even in the business world I had never seen people behave this egregiously.
In the final chapter of my book I shared this thought, “Yes, fight-or-flight is our natural response, but with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we can respond in supernatural faithfulness. We don’t have to sit unmoving and unfeeling, but we can continue to serve even biting sheep until God removes us or them.”
This whole idea of supernatural faithfulness to God’s calling versus giving in to the natural reactions of fight-or-flight is why I wrote this book. Once again, let me take you back to an excerpt from the Introduction—
Would I ever want to relive this experience? No way! But there were lessons I learned during this walk through hell that I could have learned in no other way. It is those lessons that I hope to be able to unpack for you, my shepherding friends, in this book. … I would say to you something that C.S. Lewis wrote, “Think of me as a fellow-patient in the same hospital who, having been admitted a little earlier, could give some advice.”
When you are under attack, I know it seems like you are alone, but you are not. Don’t give in to fight-or-flight, but ask God to supernaturally empower you to remain faithful. I believe When Sheep Bite can be a huge assistance to you as well. Please pick up a copy and reach out to me if I can be of assistance to you.
David describes slanderers like this: “They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s; the poison of vipers is on their lips” (Psalm 140:3).
I’m sure you have experienced the poisonous, stinging bites of a slanderer’s fangs, just as David did.
Instead of lashing out, David prays:
Keep me safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked; protect me from the violent, who devise ways to trip my feet. … May slanderers not be established in the land; may disaster hunt down the violent. I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy. (Psalm 140:4, 11-12)
Notice what David doesn’t do and does do:
🚫 He doesn’t respond to the evil people that have spewed slander at him.
✅ He does ask God to deal with those gossips and slanderers.
Let’s follow his example. When the attacks come your way, let God respond to those people, and let us follow the example of another prayer of David: “Be merciful and gracious to me, O God, be merciful and gracious to me, for my soul takes refuge and finds shelter and confidence in You; yes, in the shadow of Your wings will I take refuge and be confident until calamities and destructive storms are passed” (Psalm 57:1).
Gossip and slander are two of the painful bites I discuss in my book When Sheep Bite. And you may also be interested in a series of sermons I shared called When Sheep Bite Sheep.
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When people lash out at us—when they bite us—they could be giving us invaluable insight into what is truly in our heart. Before we respond too quickly, we need to take some time for introspection.
Check out this part of my conversation with John Opalewski and Jim Wiegand on the Leading From Alignment podcast.
Chapter 2 of When Sheep Bite is entitled ‘Is God Trying to Get My Attention?’ I tell a story about two similar bites I received from two totally different people who didn’t even know each other. I wrote—
As I drove back across the state, I kept the radio off and my ears open. I could feel the Holy Spirit asking me, “Why do you think two different people have called you the same nasty word?” The only honest answer I could give was, “Because it’s true.”
I wasn’t wrong in the way I held to the rules, but my overly-confident attitude had definitely crossed the line to become an in-your-face arrogance. I learned two lessons from this experience. First, if I do the right thing the wrong way, I’ve really done the wrong thing. Second, when similar attacks come, I need to pay attention.
Now, when a painful attack suddenly confronts me, I go to the mirror. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with them that they would bite me like this?” I go to prayer to ask, “Did I do something that provoked this?” Sometimes I have literally gone into my bathroom, closed the door, and gotten nose-to-nose with myself to ask this question, and then listened for the Holy Spirit to speak to my heart.
My cousin Dick Brogden wrote, “Critics and skeptics are gifts to us, for in their aspersions they often bring to light a brokenness or a liability early on in its development in us. If we are secure enough to ferret out the truth through the condemnation of others, we remain healthy in the long term as our malady is exposed and dealt with before it becomes too serious.”
Remember that we are naturally self-protective, so this time of introspection will need to be supernaturally empowered by the Holy Spirit if we are going to see the true prompter of the attack.
Please check out my book When Sheep Bite to both heal from past bites and prepare yourself for the bites which are inevitably coming in the future.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
On The Craig and Greg Show, Greg noted that my book When Sheep Bite isn’t just for church leaders, but business leaders can benefit from reading this as well.
I recently shared a series of messages for all Christians about how to handle the painful bites that sometimes come from other Christians. The series was called When Sheep Bite Sheep.
Craig T. Owens 