The Lord is my Shepherd

Psalm 23

^{(NIV 2011)}

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
 ² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
 ³ he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
   for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
   through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
   for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
   they comfort me.

 ⁵ You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
   forever. 

I'm preaching on this passage really soon.  Meditating on the image of God as my Shepherd...and I as His lamb has put me in a fresh place of wonder and awe of Him.

It's kind of funny when I think of how many times I have seen the picture of Jesus holding a lamb, or heard about Him being "the Good Shepherd."  It certainly isn't that I didn't know what that meant conceptually, but at this season of my life I find that it just means so much more to me.  In fact, to be quite transparent...over the last day or so I have thought of that image of Jesus holding a lamb with appreciation where earlier I had some other emotion toward it.  I don't mean to be dramatic, but there was a little something inside of me that disliked those types of images, maybe because they were too wimpy, or Jesus almost looked giddy with a big smile on His face, etc.  Now I'm in awe that God allowed Himself to be so humble as to reach down and scoop up into His arms...a stupid, smelly little lamb like myself.  Wimpy?  No...incredible!  It's a perfect image of "meekness" ("power under control") - the amazing power of the Creator God who speaks this universe into existence...can also take on the form of a giddy shepherd holding His smelly lamb.  Why "giddy?"  Well that's another development lately in this season of my life...continually coming across the description and example of God's love for us.  He is overwhelmingly passionate about finding those whom are "lost" and scooping them up into His arms.  Read the 3 examples in Luke 15 and try to tell me that God isn't "giddy" - overwhelmingly excited about every lost person He gets to scoop up into His arms and call "son" and "daughter."

I have been scooped up into the arms of a Shepherd God who loves me more than I can understand.  Psalm 23 is an example of David trying to capture the height and depth and width of this love of God...he can't, but what a wonderful attempt!

Thick Buttons or Warm Beer

I heard a short war story the other day, and agreed with the story's teller that it was incredibly true about church ministry as well.  The story goes that an old army officer was talking to a buddy in an overseas crowded bar.  He told his friend "I can tell you how close to the action these men are simply by listening to them talk."  Intrigued by this his friend asked him "how?"  "By what they complain about," he replied.  "If they talk about how warm the beer is, you know they haven't seen much action, but the ones complaining about how high off the ground their buttons keep them...those men have seen the real war."

Warm beer or buttons.  It's a funny little story, and yet I think this helps capture the feeling so many have experienced in ministry.  It seems the case of so many, that they are having trouble with their buttons holding them off the ground too high, while at the same time getting phone calls, emails and nasty little jabs from people upset about their warm beer.  In other words, how many times are you trying to focus your attention on reaching this lost, broken world with the hope and truth of the gospel...but keep getting side-tracked (or worse) by those back-line (as opposed to "front-line") battles over personal preferences and opinions...and isn't it strange how much power there can be in that little word "just" ("if we would just..." or "I think they just...").

Now...after we come to the point where we acknowledge that this is truly a problem, it gets even more interesting when we humble ourselves enough to do an honest self-examination.  How many of us, honestly...are actually on the "front-lines" and not just watching from the side, or a safe few hundred yards back thinking "yeah, 'warm beer'...he's right, people really can be ridiculous."

So what's the answer?  Don't complain, or go to the front-lines?  Maybe both, but prayerfully so.  Let me challenge you, as I also challenge myself, to pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal to you where He wants you to boldly step forward...to get into the real battle - for people who desperately need the message we carry!  May we become people who don't just refuse to complain about our ministry preferences, but into those who understand the challenge of being shot at, and with understanding can help pray for the perspectives to be stretched of those complaining of 'warm beer.'