Truth Makes Us Sheepish.
Monday, July 24, 2023
Can We Admit
The Dark Would Have Us,
And
That We Want To Live In The Light?
Psalm 23:3
… he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
John 10:14
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
Words of Grace For Today
There’s not much good about being compared to sheep. Oh, the lambs are cute. Getting up every 2 hours through the nights during the months of lambing season is not at all cute. Stubborn rams and ewes are not anywhere near cute. Helpless and dumb flocks are frustratingly exactly not cute.
So with the 23rd Psalm we start today and any good day with an admission that we are pretty dumb when it comes to living in God’s creation. We go on to admit that we need help and protection from the Evil One. While we are at being humble (always a good start) we can confess our sins and total dependence on God for life itself, for every breath.
Sheep-like we are then. Humble we must be.
God, though, does not see us as useless or dumb or helpless. God leads us in the right paths, not so much for our sake, but for God’s. God wants creation to work (whenever and whatever that will be) as God intends it to work.
At the centre of each of our lives is a ‘soul’, the being of being human, conscious and aware of being alive, of value, of time and future and possibility, of love, hope and faith. Too often our souls rot right out from inside us, dripping on the floor like apples gone bad for way too long, stinky, buggy goo all over our lives.
Then God restores our souls, so that we can also be aware of God’s steadfast love, forgiveness, and renewal of life … life that intends us to live to benefit others.
It’s living to benefit only ourselves that rots our souls out of us.
When we are down and out of soul, in the gutters of creation, far from where God would have us live, we may well cry to God for help.
Always God hears our cries. God knows our voices. And God rescues us, yet again, so that we can know God’s voice: Jesus calling us … calling us to come home, and sending us again to go out into the world to give God’s benefits of life to others. Not simply a sending, but a sendoing.
Good hearty soul time it is then, living for other’s benefit, especially for those who do not deserve it at all … which is who we are every time God comes to rescue us, often with the voice, heart, and hands of other people of God.
Lots of people need what God gives. How can we give some of it today? Each day?
Can we humbly accept that we need others to give it to us, as well, on behalf of God?