Psalm 23 continued

I have heard a lot of people referring to Pslam 23 lately so I thought I would give it a closer look. In my last post I told you about the embarrassing misunderstanding of the first line that I had when I was a child. So today I wanted to look at the second verse and tell you what it means to me now compared to when I was a child. And in the weeks to come I will continue on through the entire passage.


Psalm 23
1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Now why in the world would God make me lie down and lead me to places where I may not want to go? Why wouldn't God just let me do what I please? That was my perspective when I was a child. I know what I want to do and God should just let me do it. That made sense to me. And the truth is God will let you do that if you don't listen to Him.

All those years when I strayed it wasn't because God no longer cared for me. I no longer listened to God. That little voice in my head saying slow down, rest, rejuvenate yourself was God talking to me. That voice I listened to that said push on. Do more, you don't need to rest was me telling myself what to do. And I got what I asked for. Exhaustion, frustration, self pity and disappointment. I set my goals too high and never took the time to ask God what his goals for me were.

I walked past the green pastures in search of golden pastures. I moved away from the still waters in search of excitement and the adventure of rough seas. I got what I searched for but it never seemed to be enough. The more I got the more I wanted and I discovered that I could never reach my goals in life because they were ever changing goals. All I really needed to do was to listen to God. He already had my goals set for me and Those goals never change. The truth is He knew I would stray and go my own way. But He also knew I would return to Him and the green pastures and still waters were waiting for me, right where He left them.

Have a Blessed day,
Greg

Psalm 23

I learned Psalm 23 (the King James version) when I was very young. But I have to admit that when I first learned it, I had a problem with it. And it was the first line that I had a problem with:

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."

Now depending on how you read this line, it can be a good thing or a bad thing. And as i often did at that age, I somehow took it the wrong way. Here is what I thought it meant:

The Lord is my Shepherd, and I don't want that.

I took the "I shall not want" part to mean that I shall not want the Lord to be my shepherd. See how I was confused? It wasn't long before someone explained my mistake and I understood the meaning of the passage. However it wasn't until I was much older that I understood the "feeling" of the passage. The truth is it was quite recently that I began feeling a lack of wanting.

Amazingly I have discovered that it has nothing at all to do with material possessions. I could have nothing and still not want. And I am finding that the less I have the less I want. As I unload my material possessions my spiritual possessions increase. As my relationship increases with the Lord I feel less of a need to have material things. Just like a shepherd, the Lord will take care of his flock. He will feed us, and protect us. And if we follow his guidance we have no need to want anything else. He will guide us if we allow him to.

Have a Blessed day,
Greg