Daily Journal: 19 June

Quiet Waters

Psalm 23:1-3 (NLV)

The Lord is my Shepherd. I will have everything I need. He lets me rest in fields of green grass. He leads me beside the quiet waters. He makes me strong again. He leads me in the way of living right with Himself which brings honour to His name.

This Psalm is a description of Jesus, the true shepherd, the good shepherd, who leads His sheep, who doesn’t lose any of His sheep, who makes Himself the only door to the sheepfold, who defends and protects His sheep from attackers and who knows each sheep by name.

One thing I am drawn to this morning as I sit quietly with my Shepherd, is the way the Psalm describes the best place for the Shepherd to lead His sheep. In green meadows where there’s plenty of goodness for the sheep to eat and rest in, and beside quiet waters where the sheep can drink safely without commotion or fear of drowning. In that place, I become strong again.

Philippians 2:14-15

(NCV) Do everything without complaining or arguing. Then you will be innocent and without any wrong. You will be God’s children without fault. But you are living with crooked and mean people all around you, among whom you shine like stars in the dark world.

(NLT) Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.

We can easily be caught up into a current and swirl of complaining thinking, of bickering and disputing, of one-upmanship and leveraging and positioning. Far away from the quiet waters Psalm 23 describes for us. If we become caught up in that current we then create the same swirl in our own minds that becomes a torrent of thinking, drowning out wisdom or gentleness or kindness. It distracts us from living peacefully, in unity, minding our own business, getting on with living right, as Christ intends, and brings disrepute both to us and to God. In that place we are broken down and scattered.

Jesus, the true shepherd, leads us to where we are united, safe, and at rest. He leads us to where we can grow strong. Nobody else can do that.

I pray we consider the meadow we’re grazing in, the stream we’re drinking from today and make sure we’re remaining in the fold of the good Shepherd where there is unity, peace and safety, where we can hear His voice and grow strong.

John 10:11-14 (NLT)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me,