Day 3 - Week 87 - Psalms 23:2 "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters."

From The Presbyterian Psalter:

My faithful Shepherd is the Lord, supplying all my needs; In pastures green He makes me rest, by quiet waters leads.

And quoting from William Evans:

It is generally recognized as being a very difficult thing to get God's people to thus lie down.  They will run, walk, fight, sing, teach, preach, work, in a word do almost anything and everything except seek seasons of quiet and periods of retirement for secret communion with God and quiet soul nurture...We do not like pauses...from the rush into the hush (to which) Jesus calls us.
 

It's true, isn't it?  I'm experiencing a time when God is forcing me to stop...to just stop...and seek Him.  There is nothing else that I can do right now except...stop.  And you know what, when we do stop and allow ourselves to be stilled, God always provides the place to do just that.   A place of provision and a place of peacefulness. 

I know my Shepherd will soon ask me to get up and get moving, but today I am trying to pay attention to His hushing and to hear His quiet voice of assurance.

 

Day 2 - Week 87 - Psalms 23:2 "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters."

These are beautiful places --- green pastures, beside the still waters.  But what about when our lives are not in such pretty sites, when the grass isn't so green and the waters seem anything but still.  What then?

Then we hold on to these verses...we hold on to the fact that the Lord IS our Shepherd.  That He will bring us again to green pastures and still waters.  That He IS faithful and that He IS good.  Sheep sometimes have to go through rocky places to get to the place of rest...and as they go through those mountain passes, through the crags and tors, their Shepherd is guiding them, always protecting them and ever loving them. 

When we're not in green pastures, we look forward to them, knowing they will come again...and knowing that we have the greenest pastures, the stillest waters waiting for us in a place that He is preparing for us now, a place that is promised to be more than our little sheep-brains can begin to imagine!

However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"-- 1 Corinthians 2:9