Oct 23 2008
be still and know
Here is a link to today’s text:
God doesn’t want you for anything you can do or accomplish. God wants you for you. God wants to be with you and for you to be with God. Sometimes this will mean forging into a dangerous mission and risky service. Sometimes this will mean giving away your possessions and offering up your life. But often this will mean sitting and praying, reading and talking. Even when you are not seeming to accomplish anything, you are with God and that is God’s desire.
Today’s Challenge:
Carve out an hour of silence this week. Do not bring a journal or a book. Turn off your cell-phone. Tell your plans to a friend who can hold you accountable. Spend a full hour with no agenda but to invite God to be with you. Write down your reflections here.
This is the first chapter of the Bible that I memorized. I just tried it right now. I remembered all the phrases but I mixed up the order on a few. (I forget whether the oil or the table came first. It is the table.) There are a lot of details that are worth exploring. We can gain a lot of understanding about the richness of this text by learning more about ancient shepherding practices (what are the rod and the staff) and we need to know that having oil poured on your head is a good thing not a bad thing. But I expect that you got the main point without all these details. And the main point is something pretty amazing.
This Psalm describes how God desires to relate to you. God wants to be a shepherd to you. God loves you. God wants to lead you to places of goodness and God will be with you even in the valley of death. Even when you are surrounded by enemies, God can give you a party. And ultimately if you accept the Lord as your shepherd, then you can live in God’s house forever. I remember very clearly the first time I found myself walking through a dark section of downtown Philadelphia, alone, in the very early morning. Ten years later, I remember walking down the street to confront a drunk neighbor who was abusing his wife. In both cases these words were on my lips, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” It was not a magic spell or a superstitious ward against harm. It was a declaration of who God is to me.
God loves me. God desires to meet me in green pastures and to walk with me in dark valleys.
on the walk
-Ethan
