The Lord is My Shepherd

Good morning, my friend!  Good morning, Father!

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s 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.” - Psalms 23:1-4 

Lord, the images in this passage of scripture are truly lovely.  They depict serenity, peace, safety, provision and security.  We know that these verses are there to comfort us and are an example of Your care for us, but I realize that so often our lives don’t feel or look anything like this.  Adjectives more accurate to how we see our lives sometimes would be:  hectic, scant, anxious, fearful and seemingly hopeless.  I’ve been mulling this over for a couple of days when I finally asked You why, if You are the Good Shepherd and we are sheep, that our lives aren’t like this.  

You pointed me to the first five words, “The Lord is my Shepherd...”  It doesn’t just say, “The Lord is A shepherd” or even, “The Lord is a PERFECT shepherd.” It says, “ The Lord is MY shepherd.”  It connotes a relationship and a personal knowing of one another.  It says in John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”  The shepherd intimately knows the sheep, and the sheep know the shepherd well enough to recognize his voice.  They also know him well enough to implicitly trust him and they desire to follow him.  They submit to his leading and they follow.  It doesn’t say that everything is perfect and wonderful all the time.  After all, they walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but the sheep are comforted in the valley, because the shepherd is near and his rod and staff lead, guide and snatch them from trouble.

So much of the time we are unaware of the very things that are constants in our lives.  No one says, “Isn’t the air magnificently full of oxygen today?” or “My, but doesn’t the ground under our feet feel secure?”  We take these things for granted and are never even aware of them, because they are always there.  Maybe sometimes we don’t sense Your presence for the same reason.  We never want to know the feeling, but perhaps we would be more aware of Your presence if for a second it were taken away and we became aware of the hellishness of that void.  Every second we are not in that hellish void of separation from You is actually enjoying the honor of Your presence.

Father, I lift my friend.  Give them faith to believe that even if they can’t perceive You, You are there in their every moment of every day.  You are more faithful than the rising and setting of the sun, the presence of oxygen in the air and the stability of the ground beneath their feet.  Help them to take joy in that knowledge.  Bless them with a hunger to know You more, and in the personal knowledge of You that they would come to know peace and safety - that they would know freedom from fear and the security and provision of THEIR personal shepherd.  Help them to comes to the point of relationship with You that they can say the words of this Psalm and see how they apply to their life, instead being some unattainable, mystical fairytale that might be a nice thought, but has no relationship to their reality.  Lead and guide them, Father.  Help them to truly know and fully trust Your Voice, have a knowing deep down inside themselves that You are good, and choose submit to Your leading.  In that closeness, even in the valley of the shadow of death, may they fear no evil, because they know You will be with them.  In Jesus Name ❤️