I'm a Sheep

    I was once struggling with a lot of unknowns. I didn’t know what would happen with my job, my coaching career, my friendships, my relationship, and many things in my life. I was becoming stressed with all the choices I had to make. So, one day I took a walk in the snow.

   I reflected on a podcast from The Porch I had heard earlier that week. It was talking about Psalm 23. That Psalm begins with saying “the Lord is my shepherd.” Now we’ve all pictured this before, at least if you are a Christian and you’ve heard the Psalm. It’s easy to see Jesus as a shepherd guiding us. But you know what that makes us? Sheep. And sheep are not the smartest creatures.

   The next verse says, “he makes me lie down in green pastures.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like to be forced to do anything. But here it says that God makes us lie down. Why would we need to be made to lie down? Perhaps it’s because God knows the temptation to keep busy is so strong for some of us. Oh sure, our reasons for trying to busy ourselves are different but we forget to rest. We forget to rest in God. And he doesn’t just make us rest in a horrible stinky place. He makes us rest in good places, in green pastures.

   Verse 4 takes a turn. It doesn’t seem like it is discussing sheep anymore. It talks about a dark valley. That doesn’t seem to apply to shepherds, but it does. Shepherds would take their sheep to mountains in the summer months. But to get to the mountains, the shepherd would have to take the sheep through valleys. There are many dangers in the valleys and shadows can become dangerous things in an instant. Yet, the good shepherd is there to protect his sheep. His rod and his staff protect and comfort us through that protection.

   As I was putting all this together, a thought hit me. Was I insisting on staying in the valley? Was I fighting my shepherd trying to stay in my comfort zone? Things were not going well at my job, but it was comfortable knowing what I was doing each day. But was I forsaking the good of the mountain that God was taking me to by choosing to stay in the valley?

   I don’t know the answers to those questions yet, but it was a good start. And I felt peace for the first time in a while.

   So, do you trust the good shepherd? How can you trust God as he leads you through valleys to the mountains?

https://youtu.be/2OwRgXLZXfc