Today, I want to start with Ps. 23:1- "The Lord is MY Shepherd."
That's personal.
Sometimes in the church, we tend to say, "Confess OUR sins," "OUR iniquities", "We", etc.
But here, in Psalm 23, we hear David say, "The Lord is MY Shepherd."
And here in, Psalm 23, I can say, and you can say, "The Lord is MY Shepherd."
And as our Shepherd, God does 3 things: He guides; He provides; He abides.
And because we have "MY" in front of that we can phrase it this way:
My shepherd abides with me.
My shepherd guides me.
My shepherd provides for me.
For me. Aren't those two words wonderful? For me. With me.
That's promise! It's a personal promise to me, and to you! We have to say that verse with meaning though- we can't just recite it without realizing what we are saying-
The Lord is my Shepherd!= The Lord abides, guides, and provides for me!
Isn't that amazing?
You know, in my darkest days, I read through Psalm 23 and I wondered, "Where is the guidance? Where is God's presence? Isn't He supposed to be abiding with me? And shouldn't he provide for me? I'm suffering here, and a Shepherd provides, so come on, Good Shepherd, lead me out of my misery!"
But now I look back.
Where is the guidance?= It was RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! The Word! God's Holy Word and the Scriptures! God's word is like a compass, it guides our actions and our decisions. The Shepherd did not fail me there.
Where is his abiding presence= Though it didn't seem like it, He was always with me. (Hebrews 13:5). Always. If He hadn't been.... Well, things would have ended a lot worse and I may not be sitting here typing this. The Shepherd did not fail me there, though Satan tried to tell me otherwise.
Why isn't he providing for me?= He always did. He always provided exactly what I needed. Was it what I wanted? Um, no. Was it enough, with His grace, to satisfy me? Yes. He provided, and in His time and in His ways. Because His thoughts are higher than my thoughts.
Let's get personal.... Take God's all availing guidance, presence, and sustenance and be grateful. Then you can say, "The Lord is My Shepherd!"
Let's get personal- Where have you seen God guide, God provide, and God abide in your life? In your trials? Please share!
I missed the blessings the last few days- but they were there!
-I had a lie in this morning!
-Rhubarb and Strawberry preserves on Whole Grain bread toasted.... mmmmm
-Time to get organized!
-Filling two bags of clothes to give to those affected by the tornado
-Dinner at my Grandparent's house and lots of laughs
-preserved a dead bird! (Don't worry- I'm not strange- this has educational purposes!)
-God GUIDES. God ABIDES. God PROVIDES. For Me. For You. That's personal.
This is great!! (as usual.. I sound like a broken record. Maybe you should write a really lame post one day just to mix up my comments a little bit. No I'm kidding, don't do that. Your posts are awesome.)
ReplyDeleteI think another way to look at the "The Lord is my Shepherd" is that it means we agree to follow Him. I mean, I guess you get that from 'Lord' anyway - how can you call someone LORD but not do what they say? But sometimes 'Lord' can be a bit of a vague or confusing term, or we might see it a bit like God's name or something. But 'Shepherd'? Shepherds guide, like you said, but for that to work there has to be something obeying the shepherd, whether that's a sheep (oh hello, biblical metaphors) or whether that's us.
Not sure if I explained that too well but basically as well as all these awesome things it tells us about God, that passage also says (I think!) that if we call God our shepherd, we've got to follow him.
And finally hooray for lie-ins! :D
Yeah...if it wasn't for God, I probably wouldn't be here anymore.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine me being happy and alive now if it weren't for Him.
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