Green Pastures

Psalm 23:2a,  "He makes me lie down in green pastures."

      I can vividly remember when I was a child how much I enjoyed lying down in the soft green grass, looking up through the branches of the trees into the blue sky, watching white clouds floating by, and listening to the steady hum of insects in the air.  It was especially fun to roll over and over down a hill with the fragrance of grass and clover and soil mingling in my nostrils.  How luxurious and refreshing the cool softness of the grass felt against my skin on a hot summer day.  What peace and contentment and pleasure I felt.

      Sheep will not lie down and relax as long as they are hungry, afraid, tormented by insects or parasites, or at odds with other sheep.  A restless, discontented, frightened, or agitated sheep does not do well.  Neither does such a person.

      A good shepherd provides rich, green pastures for his sheep.  They are fed abundantly.  Our Good Shepherd provides a place of spiritual abundance, of rest and contentment, for us.

      John 10:7, 9-10,  "Therefore Jesus said again,  'I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep....I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.  He will come in and go out, and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full."

      Phillip Keller in his book, "A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23," says, "In the course of time I came to realize that nothing so quieted and reassured the sheep as to see me in the field."  Nothing in our lives so quiets the fear, the agitation, of our lives like the realization that our Good Shepherd is present with us and in control of all our circumstances.  It is in this assurance of God's protection, provision, and Presence with us that we can relax and find rest and peace and contentment.

Thank You, Father, that You are our Good Shepherd, and You provide all that we need.  Thank You that we can be at peace, relaxed and contented, when we rest in You.  Amen.