Skip to main content

The Lord Is My Shepherd

 

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. (NIV)

 

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. (KJV)

(Psalm 23:1)

 

          My Sunday School class homework asks me to spend some time memorizing and meditating on Psalm 23, so here is the first verse. First, let’s look at the first part. The Lord is my shepherd. There are books written about this psalm – one of them was written by a shepherd, so he has an idea what David was singing about. Without rehearsing what he wrote, the fact that the Lord is my shepherd means that the Lord calls the shots. I’m His pet, His livestock. He decides where I go, what I do, when to shear me, and, possibly, when to sacrifice me (in a manner much more minor than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ – I’m not even pretending to go there!)

          Generally, people think this psalm is comforting, and it is, but this part of this verse is problematic for me. It is comforting, but it is also disturbing. I lived with my parents and spent from 2015 to 2019 as my father’s caregiver. One of the biggest problems was that my parents tended to make decisions for me without including me in the conversation. The organizations and companies I worked for tended to make decisions that involved me without involving me.

          I can well imagine that most people go through some of this. It’s probably a completely natural – fallen – response. It’s not really that we want to be included. We want our opinion to matter at least a little more than anyone else’s. “It’s my life, after all!” How can anyone, even God, know what’s best for my life better than I do?

          Do you see what’s happening here? There’s separation.
It might seem tiny, but it’s the first blow of an ax against the bark of the tree of the relationship. It is the point at which we must decide if we are going to love and trust the Lord (or the parent, spouse, employer, or what-have-you) even though He is (or they are) taking charge of your life as if they have a right to do so and making decisions of which you haven’t approved. And, frustratingly, this isn’t a decision you make today and never have to make again. It’s a decision we all have to make every time the Lord’s will doesn’t happen to be ours.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more