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Don and Wendy Francisco
This is an unbelievable myth... except that many people believe it. Somewhere somebody gave a sermon about real life shepherds who break the legs of wandering sheep and then carry them until they can walk again. This is supposed to form a bond between that sheep and it's shepherd.
And it's a bunch of bunk... sheep doo... baaahloney. It's wrong in real life and it is sanctimoneously errant too.
First of all, shepherds don't break the legs of wandering sheep. A friend of ours talked to a shepherd in England who had one sheep who continually broke the fence down and led the rest of the sheep out. So he waited to find out which sheep was doing this and when it was halfway through the fence, he shot it, thereby removing the problem from the herd AND plugging the hole in the fence. And unless you are a vegetarian, we won't accept your complaints about this story. We don't raise sheep, but that was one farmer's solution.
Shepherds don't break the legs of their sheep. I have worked with animals all my life and I can tell you, nobody would torture any living animal by breaking it's legs bare handed. This would not endear the animal to you. Animals are not that stupid - not even sheep.
Secondly, this concept is not in the Bible. It's just a sappy sentimental self abasing concept that someone who didn't have a clue about the atonement wrote.
We have clear examples of what God does when sheep wander. If a sheep gets lost unintentionally, God leaves all the healthy sheep to look for her. Then, everybody rejoices when she's found. It does not say, "Then the almighty graspeth the forelegs of the naughty sheep and snappeth them." It does not say that.
If a sheep wanders intentionally, the Father simply waits for His prodigal to come home. Then He celebrates the return. The Bible does not say, "The Father celebrateth the return of His beloved prodigal, and then snappeth his legs so that he doth not wander again".
The reason we have such warped ideas about God is that we are warped. So we warp our ideas about who He is. God has perfected us in His Son, who was broken for us.
God's ways all benefit people. His precepts are there to keep us from self destruction. So if we wander into stupidity, we will usually bog our own lives down, as the prodigal son did. He was given his freedom and found out how wonderful it was to be in His Father's home. Then he made his own way back.
This mythical sheep tale creates fear and misunderstanding in people. But it is not true, either with actual shepherds, or with God.