It’s 2:30am on Tuesday morning and it may as well be 2:30pm because I’m like wide totally awake. I’m kind of depressed and sad today so I’ll call this “blogs from the dark night of the soul”.
The first verses I ever learned were the 23rd Psalm. Don’t know if she remembers it but my Mom actually taught it to me when I was but a wee little lad. We’re going through some valley experiences right now as a family and yesterday I have this calendar on my desk that a lady I work with Pat gave me for Christmas that has verses for each day. I noticed I hadn’t flip through it since the 3rd and so started to look through them to bring them up to date. David’s Psalm was one of those days I missed… or possibly I didn’t “miss” it but rather it was the right time to discover it again. Thanks Pat!
-“A Psalm of David.”
David wrote poetry and songs to God out of what was going on in his life. He acknowledged that God was always much way more bigger than himself and always in control. David was a pretty “big” guy, maybe not in physical stature, but he became essentially the first King of the Israelite nation. (you’re saying “no that’s not right”, read your bible he was the fist King with God’s blessing) There we’re other rulers in that day that had the same kind of power and stature of David but the difference was he knew in God’s eyes he was just like a tick on a dog.
My dog Trixie has some of those. It’s a problem. I digress yet again.
-“Jehovah [is] my shepherd, I do not lack,”
We all need guidance and somebody to make us feel safe. It’s encoded in our DNA that we all need a shepherd of sorts. As we get older we tend to think we’re more in control of things, but really we’re just like little kids telling God “I do it my-selfff!”.
Right now as we speak my precious little girl is wondering where her shepherd is. She’s in a very lonely place right now and her mom and I are doing our best to help her find her shepherd. She’s never felt the need of anything really, we’ve provided for her up to this point fairly well but she will have to learn on her own that the Lord “IS” her shepherd. My heart is being ripped to shreds.
-“In pastures of tender grass He causeth me to lie down, by the quiet waters He doth lead me.”
We soooo take rest for granted. They say that sheep that aren’t led as a herd will just seperate wander and wander aimlessly and eventually just die because they don’t have the survival instincts of other animals in the wild. The job of a good shepherd always is to find a safe place where they can graze and rest a while. I don’t pretend to know too much about sheep or herding but this concept still resonates with me sort of. Without being led to a safe place where we can rest and be refreshed we’ll just continue to “wander aimlessly” without any purpose or direction and eventually become emaciated.
Now I also understand the purpose of a sheep is to hang around long enough to become supper, so comparing ourselves to the wooly varmints is a slippery slope in most cases, but sheep are basically stupid and we do tend to exhibit many of the same behaviors.
-“My soul He refresheth, He leadeth me in paths of righteousness, for His name’s sake,”
Why were we created? What is our purpose? Why were we made so different from sheep, and birds, and dog ticks, and sea cucumbers? Ever ask yourself what is the meaning of life? Is it just to wander aimlessly through till you die, or is there some other reason?
Now growing up in a household where both of my parents were high school science teachers we were taught that logic, order, and reason prevail. By that I was taught you extrapolate, evaluate, categorize, and compare the empirical data. Throw out the extremes as anomaly and use the means value in order to draw your conclusion. Right?
But what if it’s not quite that simple? What if we were made for God’s pleasure as Rick Warren point’s out? That’s a far more complex issue worthy of consideration and debate. Why would we a humans “evolve” so far past all other living things? What if we were created simply for “His name’s sake”?
-”Also — when I walk in a valley of death-shade, I fear no evil, for Thou [art] with me, Thy rod and Thy staff — they comfort me.”
I experienced “death-shade” and got some really sad news today. My mom’s best friend and in her words “the closest thing to a sister died today”. Her name was Sue Lambert and I’ve known Sue since… well always. I’ve never not known Sue. She had cancer and actually died as a result of an allergic reaction to the chemo because in a very rare instance her body produced an enzyme that only one in a million people have a problem with.
From the perspective of a sheep this kind of thing makes little sense, but this lady allowed her herself to be led through this life by the rod and staff. She is now at home with her shepherd.
-“Thou arrangest before me a table, over-against my adversaries, Thou hast anointed with oil my head, my cup is full!”
You know it occurs to me we’re in an economic mess. President Obomber says we’re in dire shape and if we don’t hurry up and spend a trillion bucks on some stupid stuff the wascally wepublicans haven’t allowed them to spend money on in 8 years we’re going to have an economic crisis that will last a whole generation or more. Vice President Joe the Schmo says there’s still about a 30% chance that even if they do hurry up and spend the money on the stoopeder dumb stuff it may still fail. Yeah I’m liking them odds Joe.
Look… rubber meets the road time here. I have the hope and faith that MY shepherd has prepared a table for me and mine with cups that are full to the brim. “When I eats, everybody eats” as I heard an old guy named Ray Shamblin say one time.
-“Only — goodness and kindness pursue me, all the days of my life, and my dwelling [is] in the house of Jehovah, for a length of days!”
I started this post at 2:30am and now it’s almost 4:30am and the clock will go off at 5:30. I started this post feeling kind of sad and depressed because there is just a whole heap of stuff going on in my life right now dragging us down. My daughter is in great distress, my wife is depressed, my mom is sad and lonely, my step dad is feeling the effects of time and gravity and I don’t know when the next time I’ll see him, my dad and step mom’s life is imploding (imploded already), my mom’s best friend died today, my house is literally worth half what I paid for it… not looking good for the journeyman here.
BUT……….
Goodness and kindness are chasing after me and my dwelling is in the house of MY shepherd.
Life is good, eternal life is better.
~Billy
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