The Sheep of His Pasture

Monday, May 1, 2023

Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!  Worship the Lord with gladness.  Come before him, singing with joy.  Acknowledge that the Lord is God!  He made us, and we are his.  We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise.  Give thanks to him and praise his name.  For the Lord is good.  His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.  

Psalm 100:1-5

Sheep are not warring creatures, they’ve been domesticated for thousands of years, and are by nature gentle.  They communicate with sounds and body language, much like any species, locating food, alerting the flock to predators, and singling-out their family position.

Perhaps one explanation of why God’s Word characterizes the people of God as sheep, and tells us to shout loud praises to our Lord, is because sheep will bleat loudly and continuously when near their food source.  Domesticated sheep tend to view their shepherd as their food source.[1]  That has some strong implications for the relationship between God and the sheep of His pasture.

The sheep of God’s pasture have a gentle posture.  In teaching the crowds of would-be followers he offered rest and strength to weary sheep:

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  Matthew 11:29

John’s Gospel changes the metaphor from Shepherd and Sheep to Vine and Branches, but the relationship is clearly the same:

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches.  Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.  For apart from me you can do nothing.  Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.  Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.  But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!  When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples.  This brings great glory to my Father.  “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.  When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.  I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!  

John 15:5-11

For You Today 

Sheep with a Shepherd, and Branches with the Vine…earthy examples of the way God loves and provides.  This is an open invitation to join the flock, stay close to the Good Shepherd, and have eternally-overflowing joy.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Flat Tire Worship  and  Of Sheep and the Shepherds Song    

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] North American Nature

Regaining Perspective

Monday, May 4, 2020

Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!  Worship the Lord with gladness.  Come before him, singing with joy.  Acknowledge that the Lord is God!  He made us, and we are his.  We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise.  Give thanks to him and praise his name.  For the Lord is good.  His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.  Psalm 100:1-5

I read a sad story about a very accomplished woman who committed suicide last week.  The story was punctuated with remarks by her grieving father.  Dr. Lorna Breen, 49, died a hero, said her father, Philip Breen.  "She was in the trenches," he said. "She was a hero."[1]

As the head of emergency services Dr. Breen had certainly seen the results of more tragedy than most of us can imagine.  After contracting the COVID-19 virus she was in a weakened physical condition, and, according to the report, emotionally exhausted, perhaps contributing to her decision to end her life.  The story is so sad considering how much Dr. Breen had to offer with her training and the position of caregiving she occupied.  It is a life ended far short of the depth it promised.  Her dad called her a hero who went down into the trenches of the coronavirus war, and the enemy killed her.

Never having met Dr. Breen, and only reading the story this morning, I would be foolish to analyze anything about her death.  However, having known several people who eventually chose the same closing story to their life’s chapter, I only observe that many times such choices are precipitated by a loss of perspective on the goodness of God’s gift of life.  Despair’s hopelessness is overwhelming for some!

Despite, at times, the horribile circumstances of chance, such as the current pandemic and its associated grim outlook, just breathing in and out, holding the hand of a loved one, or watching a baby sleep can bring exhaustion’s bleak outlook back into a proper focus.  This is what the Psalmist was telling us; serve God with gladness and joy, and remember that He is good.  The simple act of praising God for His goodness and mercy is a two-fold necessity to life.  In order of priority:

1.     Praising God is fitting; it is the rightful response of creation to Creator

2.     Praising God is fulfilling; when we do that which is part of our hard-wired calling, the sense of “rightness” is like a string of dominoes falling in line, one after another.  We do the fitting thing, and the fulfillment of joy, peace, and gladness naturally flood back into perspective. 

Some things in life are simply unexplainable in why people choose what has been called a permanent solution for a temporary problem; suicide is one of them.  It is tragic, but often precipitated by conditions that are transitory, not God’s good choice for your life, no matter how difficult the circumstances have turned.  

For those who choose to end life, those they leave behind face grieving a loss that will never completely allow rest.  For the parents, family and friends of Dr. Breen’s, and the host of people she helped, and those she might have helped, we offer our heartfelt condolences and prayers for comfort.

For You Today

Let’s let the Psalmist voice our last, and hopefully strongest words today:

For the Lord is good.  His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.  Psalm 100:6

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today!

Go to VIDEO

Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on Psalm 100 see Flat Tire Worship

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[1] An ER doctor who continued to treat patients after she recovered from Covid-19 has died by suicide

Flat Tire Worship

[i]

Monday, May 8, 2017

Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!  Worship the Lord with gladness.  Come before him, singing with joy.  Acknowledge that the Lord is God!  He made us, and we are his.  We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise.  Give thanks to him and praise his name.  For the Lord is good.  His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.  

Psalm 100:1-5^(NLT)

This Psalm is the standard for preachers describing how you’re supposed to go to church, all glad, shouting, and singing with joy from the heart.  We are sheep led by the Shepherd, thankful for His protection and faithful care.

But some days you feel down, deflated, or just plain grumpy; life has gone wrong and you can’t muster-up a grin, much less a joyful shout of praise.  I have had a number of conversations with people over the years who have told me they sometimes didn’t want to come to church to face all the phony smiles people put on their faces because it’s Sunday, and that’s how you’re supposed to look in God’s house.  Their confession often was:  I went anyway.  And, mostly, the follow-up statement was that they felt much better for having gone.  A few confessed what I suspect is the more common reality, that they felt better, but spent most of the worship time despising those who had their pasted-on happy face. 

I call it flat tire worship!

I haven’t had a flat tire in several years, but I’ve had enough of them to remember the frustration of being inconvenienced, and having to get down in the muddy ditch to work at putting on the spare (which sometimes was flat in the trunk, thank you very much!). 

Tires never go flat at convenient times.  The last one I had was about four years ago driving home from a church meeting on a particularly hot and rainy August night.  My car was new, but nails on the road don’t know that.  It was nearly pitch dark on the back country road, and I hadn’t even located where the lug-wrench might be.  Even when I found it, I didn’t know you had to use a hidden-in-the-glove-compartment special tool to get the wheel covers off, just to start changing the flat.  Had it not been for a Sheriff’s deputy who happened to cruise by and stopped to help, I might still be there today!

So…what about when our worship is of the flat-tire variety?  What about when all we can muster is an insincere pasted-on smile to go along with half-hearted praise?

Three thoughts:

1.      God already knows what your heart is like, and the kind of week you’ve had.  He sees past your pasty smile; so go ahead, offer Him what you can, even if you don’t feel like it…you probably get an “A” for effort in spite of yourself.

2.     Confess to God in that worship time just how much you don’t feel like worshiping, and how you’d like to wipe a few phony smiles off some other faces.

3.     Consider what a flat tire does to you, particularly when you least expect it, when you’re in a hurry, or how this rude occurrence places you in a vulnerable position where you are not in control, and least-able to handle the outcome.

Flat tires force you to slow down, stop, face the problem, and change; you also might need help.

Sounds like worship to me! 

For You Today

If a flat tire comes your way, you have two choices, curse the thing, or make a change.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

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 ^I Title image: By Ildar Sagdejev, via Wikimedia Commons