The Lord is my Shepherd

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores me soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

You rod and your staff comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I have probably read through this psalm a hundred times and always found it nice. It’s comforting. I often picture a cute little sheep running around just in a happy little meadow with Jesus just loving them and the sun shining. It’s kind of funny that I picture it that way. The psalm doesn’t in anyway imply a happy go lucky relationship.

Over the past year, my relationship with God has been pretty much passionate and loving and intense. Not to say I haven’t had some hard weeks or days of discouragement, but generally I have come to know God as my romancer, my love, my passion, my life, my fire. I loved learning about God’s character in these ways, and I really don’t want Him to ever not be those things to me! However over the past few weeks I have been so weak. My walked with God experienced some bumps and somehow my focus changed from God is crazy and intense and I just want to be near Him, to I am just so weak, Lord just get me through today. Forget all the things I was learning, and just get me out of bed tomorrow morning for class.

I don’t know if it is the weather, school, tiredness, my car accident or maybe Satan. But I was just waking up every day feeling exhausted. I didn’t have any motivation within myself to worship or pray or read my Bible.  I thought maybe I was just experiencing an end to a time of passion. Maybe everyone was right and passion can only last so long. Maybe it is my turn to be weary and tired.

A combination of all of those things started my days off with weariness and no matter what initiated it each day became another day in between me and God. I wasn’t enduring any crazy tragedy or anything, I was just experiencing apathy. Lack of passion. Everything I had been learning and venturing through got push aside and I just started praying for God to lift this weariness. I felt Satan using my defencelessness against me and I really felt like a child. I wanted to just curl up and have someone else come and set me feet back on track. Funny now to say that because now I see that is exactly what He was offering to do.

I picked up my Bible and read this psalm again. It was different this time. God revealed to me His character and what it means for Him to be my shepherd. My focus in my weariness was on mustering up the joy I had yesterday! I was grasping and reaching for the life and fire I had just a few weeks before. I felt each morning adding a weight onto my prayer life and just creating more distance between Him and I. I was afraid of the distance.

God really spoke to my heart using this psalm. He showed me that weariness does not mean failure. Weariness does not mean sin. A path of weakness does not mean I am turned in the wrong direction. My car accident and the following week of emotions and cloudy moods did not take away from who God is to me. In fact, God used my changes to show me His consistency.

My weariness was a huge blessing. God brought me to the conclusion that the reason this psalm meant more to me this time was because I was truly a weak little sheep in this time. And the weaker I became the more I was in need of Him as my shepherd. The more I strayed from the path and lost strength the stronger He became. The heavier the weight on my shoulders the more I could feel Him lifting this burden into His arms. This truth brought peace.

Not only did I feel at peace with being weak in this little incident, I felt as though no future trial could even attempt to come up against my Shepherd. I know someday I will face trials, it is promised in scripture, I will face many trials and sufferings but I also got a tiny glimpse in my momentary weakness of just how strong my Shepherd is. I see now that His strength is immediate. From the minute my car flipped over He was there. As I become weak, He becomes strong. The weaker the sheep the greater the care of the shepherd. God used this small incident and these few days of darkness to bring light into an area of my heart. He continued His process of sanctification in me and used my weakness to reveal His strength. It is just so evident that He uses every situation for our good and His glory.

I can be weak, I can be defeated, I can be walking through the valley of the shadow of death and still I need not fear any evil! His rod and His staff comfort me.  The state of the sheep never dictates or compromises that its home is with the Shepherd. And if my Shepherd leads me by still waters in this small trial of weakness how much more will He bring rest in a future time of suffering! I can have hope now for any trials to come. Not even just hope to endure, but hope that He will restore my soul, and that I will dwell in His house forever. Hope that like a furnace, my times of weakness will chip away my old appearance as He refines me from a weak little sheep into a daughter of all His inheritance.

This peace brought joy and this joy made my heart cry out in spite of its weariness. God moved my heart to sing a new song to Him and I realized again that the worth of my King is immeasurable and I cannot let anything this world has come between me and Him. I cannot let anything dictate my heart of worship towards Him. I started telling God that I wanted to worship Him even if I was too tired to stand up and be joyous, even if I worshiped with tears in my eyes or while lying on my bedroom floor. Because even when I feel like my tank is empty and my joy is stolen, This Shepherd is worthy of everything I have.

With my small seed of faith, God’s love and joy and strength flooded into my heart again and made me come to life. His presence was so refreshing after spending a few weeks being so depleted. Filled up and hope restored, I will continue to dwell in the house of my Shepherd forever.