I have to say thank you to my dear
friend from Sunday School class who gave a devotion at our Women's
Tea about our Good Shepherd giving us green things to nibble on in
the desert. She had these visual aids showing the grazing lands of
Israel with little dots of sheep on rocky, sandy hillsides. She went
on to explain how evening condensation dripped down the rocks to form
little patches of green at the base. (Gen. 37:12; Ps.23; John 10)
But my mind went to another place while
she was talking. I thought about what the sheep's perspective was.
They gladly chomped away at whatever the Shepherd led them to and
when it was gone, followed him to the next spot. Not at any time in
this scenario did the sheep look up and say, “What a lousy excuse
for grazing land this is!” or “How am I supposed to survive out
here in this desolate place?” Aahh wretched heart of mine, isn't
that what I do, nearly all the time as I look at the circumstances
around me? I question and doubt, even when every single day I have my
daily piece of nourishment right in front of my nose. I keep looking
up and all around, many times away at the future, and see what's
lacking.
I am reminded of the Lord's prayer
(Matt. 6; Luke 11) where it says “give us this day our daily bread”
because we learn that God's intention is for us to be grateful that
he provides every day, what we need without fail. We also learn that
we don't need to worry about the day after that and the day after
that (also from Matt 6).
I am also reminded of John Calvin who,
as an exercise in understanding God's provision, counted every
catastrophy he could think of that did not happen to him even
though it could have, so he would have a keener sense of all that God
provided in the form of protection.
Both of these examples stir me to
remember that I can go through life looking at the desolation of the
dry desert places, or I can focus on today and the satisfying patch
of green laid right before me.
So I got this all worked out in my mind
and I shared it over kitchen clean-up with my son, thinking, “I'll
keep him from falling into the 'woe is me' trap by sharing this
little nugget as a teachable moment.” But boy did I get a surprise.
He said to me, “Yeah, I try to stay away from that kind of
thinking, and I have to keep myself from scolding my friends when
they go there, saying, 'then this awful thing happened and then this
other awful thing happened' I don't want to sound mean.” So
basically he is already a much better sheep than I am, and that's
where I found my most precious morsel of green for that day!
Thank you Lord, for elders and
youngsters who can breathe truth into my life as we walk together on
the path you have given us. Thank you for guiding us always to green
pastures and still waters.
