You know how there are some passages of Scripture that you have heard so much that the weight of it and the meaning don't hit you anew and fresh? Well, Psalm 23 is one of those for me. But today, as I read, it was fresh and alive and I just want to get my thoughts down on paper...that is, my "blog journal".
"The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want." I long to be able to say that all the time and mean it with everything in me. To truly want nothing else than Christ alone. To echo with Asaph in Psalm 73:25-26 "Whom have I in Heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
"He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters." I always loved those verses because to me it ment that God knows we need times of rest and relaxation (ie...reading a book, TV, vacation, etc...) but the more I studied, it doesn't mean that at all (though I think there is a time and a place for those things)! Because those things are not the things that bring TRUE rest as much as I may turn to them for it. As I looked up other verses with the word "pasture" in it...it started to click. In John 10:9 Jesus says, "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find PASTURE." Psalms 100:3 says that "we are His people the sheep of HIS pasture". The pasture isn't a book or a movie...it's God Himself...HIS WORD! And the Hebrew translation for "still waters" is "waters of rest". In Mathew 11:28 ("Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest) it's clear that the only way to true rest is found in coming to Christ...not necessarily going on vacation or having a day off!
I am still not done taking a closer look at Psalm 23 but verse one was like a needed 2x4 over my head! And I have some serious self examination to do....when I am weary, what do I turn to? When I am tired of homeschooling, meal making, breaking up fights, etc... is it words of prayer on my tongue or frustration and anger? When I want to "close the door" and get away do I retreat to the the Word, or to my own world of selfishness? And, at the end of the day, do I rejoice that "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end (Lam. 3:22)"?
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