Monday, February 22, 2010

Psalm 23 in My Life

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD,
I am a sheep. I've said before in the past that I don't make a good sheep. And I didn't see that as a bad thing. It's been pressed on me since then the idea that you cannot be a shepherd until you've been a sheep. I HATE being a sheep. Lord change my heart. Make me YOUR sheep.

I SHALL NOT WANT.
I resolve to be content where He's placed me. There are so many things that I desire - and some of them are good things. I think maybe even most of them. But I fall into the trap of focusing on them to the exclusion of what's going on around me right now. I want a wife - I want financial security and self-sufficiency, among other things. But God wants other things. He wants me to be salt and light to the world - a beacon of hope to people filled with and surrounded by despair. And those aren't mutually exclusive. I am to live the life I've been given right now as though it has a purpose. Because it does.

HE MAKES ME TO LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES.
In Israel, both today and then, there isn't much in the way of green pastures. The pastures that are there for me to lie in are ones he's created for me. He's moved rocks and trees and cleared out dangerous animals - all for my benefit. I am right where the Lord has prepared for me to be. He has a reason for me being exactly where I am.

HE LEADS ME BESIDE STILL WATERS.
The Bible addresses worrying frequently. And never once is there a verse extolling its virtues. We're not to worry. No matter what the countryside looks like, we live a life beside still waters. God is a God who controls the wind and the waves and everything that goes on. Why the hell should I be afraid?

HE RESTORES MY SOUL.
It doesn't make sense for something as ethereal as a soul to be hurt, but my soul frequently becomes damaged. I sin. I sin repeatedly. I lose touch with God up to and past the point where I think there is no point in trying anymore. I also run myself at 100 miles an hour, burning the candle at both ends until my body, mind and soul are just exhausted. But God is more powerful than I realize. Just a touch from him - if I just let him, he forgives me. Like it never happened. He has shown me time and time again how far the east is from the west, but somehow I still forget. He has proven throughout history that his M.O. is to use the most broken, useless people to accomplish miracles and mighty works. Why do I think I'm different? The Lord has been described as a stream panted for by a thirsty deer. He can and does refresh and relieve. Lord....I immerse my soul in you. Restore its vitality and purify it.

HE LEADS ME IN PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
He blazed the trail. He leads me. He leads us. He's not telling us to do something that hasn't been done before - we're not guinea pigs! He's been there, and he leads from the front, calling us to come and go where he's already been. It is possible. It's been done. It will be done again.

FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE.
It's not about me. I make comments sometimes about not seeing the benefit, about what's in it for me - and as has been pointed out to me, it isn't about me. It's about God and His glory. I get no glory. I want no glory. Father, take your rightful place in the spotlight.

YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH,
The valley of the shadow of death. This really encouraged me; I have been afraid of many things, but I have never been afraid of death. Paul said that to live was Christ and to die was even better. I don't have a death wish, but in the psalmist's words, none of us even really experience death. Christ died. Jesus died so that I wouldn't have to experience it. All I experience is the shadow of it. I would much rather be run over by the shadow of a bus than by the real thing.

I WILL FEAR NO EVIL
....There are so many things that I fear. I fear inadequacy. I fear loneliness. I fear failure and letting down those I love and consequences and pain. But I squash all these fears into a cold, hard ball and force them down deep where nobody, not even myself, knows they're there anymore. But that's not God's plan. He intends for us to expose our fears. Lay them at the foot of the cross. Deny them power by exposing them to light. But not even just exposing them to God. We have been given other people to live this life with, to share our doubts and fears and inadequacies with. To be transparent with.

FOR YOU ARE WITH ME.
YOU. The God who created sunsets and sunrises, the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon, the oceans and the deserts and the polar ice caps and the ozone layer. You live alongside me. In everything from major life decisions to what I should wear today. In heartbreak and laughter, in music and silence. The Creator of the universe walks by my side because He wants to be with me.

YOUR ROD AND YOUR STAFF, THEY COMFORT ME.
Life is, for lack of a better word, intense. I am surrounded by obstacles and challenges that can be, at times, claustrophobic. But God has promised us that there is nothing we've been given that we can't handle or deal with. There is always a solution, even when I can't see it. God has a rod and a staff.

YOU PREPARE A TABLE BEFORE ME IN THE PRESENCE OF MY ENEMIES.
Peter's greatest failure. Jesus predicted his denial. And immediately, Peter was outraged and disagreed loudly and vehemently. But before the night was over, the rooster crowed, Christ was proven right, and Peter was proven not only a coward and a traitor, but a hypocrite and a liar. How often have I been there? "Lord, I swear I'll never do it again. I'll never even look at her chest, I'll never again masturbate or lie or......" Purest of intentions. Believing every word coming out of my mouth. Proving myself a liar, a hypocrite, a traitor, a coward, and an idiot. Proving myself unfit. After Peter did this, even after Jesus rose from the dead, Peter went fishing. He went back to the insignificant life he knew before he was called to something greater. BCC. He went back to what he knew. How could Jesus possibly want him now? But God didn't leave him there. His Lord did want him. What did Jesus do? He made Peter breakfast. In plain sight of the Father, the devil, and every one of the other ten men who witnessed Peter's failure. He prepared a table. He prepared a table and gave Peter his life's assignment. His mission and calling. Lord......when I hear your call....sensitize my ears. I will come running. I thank you not only that you CAN use me, but even more unbelievably, that you will.

YOU ANNOINT MY HEAD WITH OIL.
I squirm when I hear words like "annointing." But I have been annointed. Even as I write this, my upper lip curls just a little bit. Annointing has a purpose however. And learning this helps me embrace it. When a shepherd annointed a sheep (of which I am one, remember), it was for one of two main purposes. Protection and healing. Protection from flies and from hurting one another (scent and lubrication, respectively). God's annointing and calling to a holy life protects me from what the world can infect me with - and it is an infection. Who desires an infection? Why would I desire the ways of the world? And protection from quarrels. Paul writes, telling us to remain above reproach so that no man may have any bad thing to say about us. And finally, possibly most needed, for healing. I've been wounded. I've been wounded by those I love, those I have loved, and by those I didn't even know. God pours the oil of his purpose and bigger picture onto me, and I am able to not only look past my pain but to look THROUGH it and to move beyond it to living effectively and bigger than me. Finally, I have to remind myself who annoints me. I don't annoint myself. My parents don't annoint me. My school doesn't. And neither does my pastor or my church. It is God's annointing, and no one else's. I must keep that in mind.

MY CUP OVERFLOWS.
Some people have this idea that the amount that God can forgive is limited. I thank Him so so so much that is not true. God doesn't just pour out mercy and grace as it's needed. He pours out an abundance - and He never runs out. Nothing I can do/think/say can cause Him to love me any less - or any more. He has placed my value as such that He finds a way, through all my rotten nature, to be with me. To bless me. I live a life of blessing. I worry about how to pay for school - I live a life where higher education is an option. How can I possibly worry about something as trivial as money? How can I possibly justify not giving it back to Him? I have not tithed consistently since I was fifteen. Where is my faith? I'm not even giving Him an opportunity. It's ALL His. Why would I hold back a tenth of it? Thank you Lord. Thank you for all You've promised, delivered on, and go above and beyond with.

SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE,
Casting Crowns has lyrics that say "He is running a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction." I've run in the wrong direction. It's amazing that no matter how far we run, no matter how long we've gone in the wrong direction, when we turn around, we don't have to make up the distance back to God. And it's a good thing, too. Because we couldn't! And we don't even have to make up any of that distance. He meets us right exactly where we turn around to come back to Him. That entire time, that entire distance, we've been followed by goodness and mercy. In the words of Max Lucado, "Not goodness alone, for we are sinners in need of mercy. Not mercy alone, for we are fragile, in need of goodness. We need them both." And what form do these take? How many times have you been on the edge of collapse and exhaustion and you were sure you weren't going to make it? I've been there more than I can remember - seems like more often the older I get. And something happens - a sunrise, a sunset, a random act of kindness from someone you've never seen before and will never see again, a kind word from someone you love. God reaches out to me through all these ways.

AND I WILL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOREVER.
"This is my temporary home. It's not where I belong. Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through. This is just a stop, on the way to where I'm going. I'm not afraid because I know this is my Temporary Home." Carrie Underwood hits it on the nail. There is a plan - a place for us to go. It's been waiting for us - for me - since the creation of the universe. I don't belong here.

Living the Dream.....

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