The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down
in green pastures;
He leads me besides the
still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths
of righteousness
For His name sake.
Yea though I walk
through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table
before me in the
presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with
oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.
Psalm
23
The 23rd
Psalm. Simple, elegant, packed full of
wonderful promises for us to trust God in.
The 23rd Psalm ranks up there as many people’s favorite
passage in the bible. I know it is one
of mine. But do we really take it to
heart? Do we trust in the promises here
and believe in them? Promises for
provision, protection, rest.
A shepherd
always leads from the front. He doesn’t
prod from behind, he leads the sheep and they follow him. When we seek guidance from God we generally
want to know the destination and then we want to set about heading off in that
direction. Funny thing, God doesn’t work
that way. God steps out front and calls
us to follow Him. We aren’t supposed to
worry about the destination, we are supposed to trust the shepherd and follow
Him.
Is it hard
to follow Him? Only as hard as we make
it out to be. It’s easy to follow Him
when things are going well. We are
content to follow the path He leads us down.
Then something happens, loss of a job, sickness, a wayward child, an
accident and then what do we do? We take
our eyes off Him and start trying to fix, cope, or find a solution to the
problem.
And it
doesn’t have to be anything serious. We
can be following Him but then we get impatient, want things to happen
faster. We want to know where we are
going or what we are going to encounter along the way.
As I have
been seeking Him I have found it can be easy to take the lead from Him. I’m diligently seeking Him, heartfelt prayer,
lots of good devotional time, studying His word and then something trips me
up. How did that happen? I was following
Him. Wasn’t I? After a fashion, but I was slowly taking to
lead. Like a child that says, “I can do
it myself!” Relying on my own strength,
not trusting in Him. All those things I
was doing are an important aspect of my continued growth but I lost focus. It’s not about my becoming strong enough to
do it; it’s about trusting in Him and His strength, His provision, His
protection. Trusting Him in everything.
I came
across a slightly different translation of the 23rd Psalm. Take a look:
Da Boss above, He take
care me,
Jalike da sheep farma take care his sheeps.
He goin give me everything I need.
He let me lie down wea
da sweet an soft grass stay.
He lead me by da water wea I can rest.
He give me new kine
life.
He lead me in da road dat stay right,
Cuz I His guy.
This is
from the Pidgin Bible translated in Hawaii.
I love the simplicity of what is stated here. He is going to take care of me, give me
everything I need, take me to the grass and water, give me a new kind of life,
and lead me in what is right. And why
does he do all this? Cuz I His guy. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
Jesus
called Himself the Good Shepherd and we are likened to the sheep under His
care. (John 10) As our shepherd, Jesus
is promising to take care of us and meet our every need. We need to stop getting caught up in
everything and thinking we have to deal with it ourselves. We need to trust in his promises.
So where
do I find myself now? Seeking Him,
gaining a better understanding of what it means to trust in Him. Learning how to recognize and catch myself
when I start trying to take the lead and relying on my strength rather than
His. Learning to accept His promises and
not to question why.
No comments:
Post a Comment