What a way to sum up how Christians should live their lives!
I just finished reading A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller. It took me just a few short days to read, because I did have to put it down and take care of my responsibilities as wife and mother. There was a time when I was able to read a whole book in one day! Not now!
I strongly recommend this book...as it was recommended to me. You can't read it without it impacting your thinking!
I couldn't read this book without tears...picturing myself as a sheep...it makes sense why God chose that animal. This author has a way with words and he had the experience as a sheepman, as he called himself. As he explained the life of a sheepman (sheep rancher or shepherd), each verse of Psalm 23 came alive for me. I just naturally assumed that if someone was a rancher, they enjoyed animals, wide-open spaces, and caring for the land and animals. Not so! He told of a fellow rancher who didn't care for his sheep in the best ways possible. He was cruel. The author told how those emaciated sheep would stand at the fence and look longingly at his good pastures. He told about how they would find ways to get to his pastures. He told how the sheep would gorge themselves on the green pastureland and of the sickness that followed. He told how the cruel rancher slit the throats of the sheep that had escaped to the good pastures...with no thought of the investment that was made or lost by his actions. He used that rancher and those sheep as a picture of what satan does to people.
And then the author wrote of how the Good Shepherd is alert to every need and possible disaster that threatens His people...His sheep. A good shepherd puts his comfort and his very life at risk for the care of his sheep. At the end of the Psalm, we read, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Through the whole year, the shepherd is always leading his sheep to the best food sources, finding safe water to drink, watching for poisonous plants and dangerous predators, applying ointments and oils to protect them from seasonal irritants, correcting their wandering, and taking them from home pastures through valleys to tablelands then home again. "The shepherd is always alert, always caring, always managing; and has brought the sheep through each season satisfactorily." I had never thought much about how the Psalmist, David, wrote from the standpoint of a sheep reflecting a whole year in its life. "The word 'house' refers to the family, household, or flock of the Good Shepherd."
The sickly sheep tried to get into the good rancher's pastures on their own. It was their doom, even though they probably would have starved during the winter due to lack of care and proper food. "This old world is a pretty wretched ranch and satan is a heartless owner. He cares not a whit for men's souls or welfare. Under his tyranny there are hundreds of hungry, discontented hearts who long to enter into the household of God- who ache for His care and concern. Yet there is only one way into this fold. That way is through the owner, Christ Himself- the Good Shepherd! John 10:9"
Oh what a picture of the quietness and contentment I can have as one of His sheep as I respond to the voice of the Shepherd and move in obedience to His will and direction! I needed this refreshment from Psalm 23. He has gone and is going before me...gently leading, caring for each concern, providing for every need, pointing out dangers...because I belong to Him! God expects me to obey His voice and He will do what is necessary to bring me back to His way.
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