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Our Cost of Saying “Yes” to God (Part 3)

Dec10

This blog may be the hardest one to write in this blog series. This is where I talk about how saying “yes” to God has cost us close relationships with people, some of whom are family members.

If you stop and think about it for a moment, if a person is saying yes to God, then in order for that person to be faithful to God, that person will then have to tell at least some people “no”. Quite simply because what are the odds that every person you know is hearing from God for your life and that all are hearing the exact same thing? It has been my life experience that most people – no matter how much they may love you or have the best intentions for you – most people are not praying that God’s will be done in your life. Is this not how the Lord Jesus told us to pray? In the book of Matthew in the Bible, at chapter 6, starting at verse 9, Jesus says, “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (NASB Italics are mine for emphasis.) Notice that Jesus didn’t pray to the Father, “May Peter’s will be done, or wait, better yet, may John’s will be done”. No! He may love them, he may cherish them and is willing to die for them, but Jesus Christ wants the will of the Father to be done, not man’s will.

After the Last Supper, Jesus – knowing what He was about to go through – went to the Garden of Gethsemane and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Matthew 26:39b NASB Italics are mine for emphasis. Also found at Luke 22:42) If Jesus Christ being perfect, being the Son of God was asking for God’s will not his own personal will to be done, then why aren’t we?

Eric and I have discovered over the past 14 years that the more we have done the will of the Father, the more we seemed to upset people, or ruffle feathers. It was not our plan to have people upset with us and we certainly were not trying to ruffle anyone’s feathers; we just wanted to follow the example of Jesus Christ. We, as imperfect humans, can have an expectation that we put upon other people, and I do not think we realize how conditional our professed love for others is when those we say we love step outside of what we think they should do in their own life.

When I sign copies of Love Waits, I sign my name and 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Why? It is called “the love chapter”, but this is love according to the word of God. “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (NASB)

In this passage it does not say that love is doing what I say to do. Nor is it saying that love means you should be living as I think you should, nor does it say that love means you should be making the choices that I deem are righteous. No, it does not say that at all. Too often though, we put our will, way, or thoughts on someone else, instead of simply praying for the Father’s will in their life.

Here is an example from our lives. In 2012, we attended a church that we were quite active in. This is after we said yes to God (blogs Our Cost of Saying “Yes” to God Part 1 and 2) and we were preparing for the move to Michigan. We stopped at the church one afternoon while running errands. While we were at the church, a friend of ours was there. We were chatting for a moment when she, in a matter-of-fact manner, mentioned that there were a group of people in church praying against us moving to Michigan because they didn’t want us to leave. I just stood there, shocked. Eric and I had been through a roller coaster ride of getting ready for the property to sell, so we could move as God was directing us. I could not believe what she had just admitted to us. Did she and the others not realize that they were praying against God’s will in our lives? Did they not realize that what we bind on earth is then bound in heaven? (Matt. 16:19, Matt. 18:18)

Eric and I said our goodbyes to her and went on with our next errand. I remember this quite clearly because I think this was my first bold prayer to God. It was early November of 2012, on a Friday afternoon, in the parking lot of Albertson’s in Williston, ND, I prayed aloud with Eric like I never prayed before. I truly believe it was Holy Spirit taking over. I did not condemn nor curse anyone for praying against God’s will, but I did repent of this sin, I did apologize for it, and I prayed for the will of the Father to override man’s will in our lives. The next morning (Saturday), we got a phone call; by noon, our property was sold with all the paperwork getting done on Monday. By Thursday, we were heading out with the kids and a cargo trailer of our belongings to Michigan.

When any of us puts our wants, desires, or even our will on other people’s lives, if we are professing to be a child of God’s, then we are in disobedience to the Father.

Here are some poignant passages in Scripture to read what God’s word says about this:

Matthew 12:46-50, “While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. Someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother,’” (NASB Italics are mine for emphasis. Also found at Luke 8:19-21)

Matt. 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.” (NASB Italics are mine for emphasis)

Matt. 10:34-37 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” (NASB Also found at Luke 12:51-53)

Saying yes to God does have a cost and even if you say yes, I expect that many times over the years to come you will be prompted by God to answer if you still say yes or not. I know that we have had to answer that; but, for us, there is no other choice. God is the most important One to us, there is no plan B.

Love and prayers, Sharon

Disappointed in God?

Dec2

(Note: I will continue my current blog series “Our Cost of Saying “Yes” to God”, but today God put this blog on my heart.)

Can a Bible believing Christian, a son or daughter of the most-high God, be disappointed in God? Yes, I believe that can happen. As a matter of fact, I have gone through that myself. Sadly, I have also witnessed people close to me walk away from God because of the huge disappointment they have felt in Him. Even more sad than that, some of them do not even realize that they have walked away from God, they just kind of keep going through the motions of “being a Christian” but are no longer saved. Jesus is no longer in them; Holy Spirit is no longer working in them. They honestly do not even realize it. It is extremely heart breaking to me, especially since I had a front row seat to witness this. How should a Bible believing son or daughter of God respond when they do feel disappointed in God? Great question, right? I will try to answer from what I have learned as I ‘ve gone through feeling disappointed by God.

Firstly, God – Jehovah, Yahweh, the Ancient of Days, the Eternal One, El Shaddai, the Creator of all humans and the universe – God is perfect. (Psalms 18:30, Deuteronomy 32:4, 2 Samuel 22:31, Matthew 5:48) His ways are perfect. His will is perfect. His timing is perfect. So, why do we get disappointed in/with God? My nutshell answer: Our expectation in Him with His will, His ways, and His timing are not fulfilled how we think it should be. Smaller nutshell – God does not do what we want, when we want. (Isaiah 55:8) I will be honest with you, that was an extremely hard pill for me to swallow. That it was not God who had been disappointing, but it was my expectation of how He was going to work, when He was going to work, and what His will would be that led to the disappointment I was feeling. This was a huge, humbling, “ouch” moment for me. I would love to say that the very moment I realized that, that I immediately fell upon my face and repented and the glory of the Lord filled the room and – voila! – I was instantaneously, miraculously healed and NEVER felt disappointment again – EVER! However, that would be a lie. Like I said, this was a HUGE pill for me. So, why couldn’t I immediately be humbled and move on from this lesson? One word – pride. (Proverbs 16:18) I had pride that I was justified in feeling disappointed in God, with how He was working, or how He wasn’t working. Or with the timeframe of when things were happening or weren’t happening and I had other people who agreed with me. But, if I claim to be saved by and through the blood of Jesus Christ, if I claim to believe the Holy Scriptures, if I believe in Yahweh as the Creator, then why am I so easily swayed by having other people validate my disappointment with the One who is perfect? Pride.

I am going to give an example from my own life of how pride got a hold of me, and I was totally caught unaware. Probably close to 20 years ago, a sister of mine told me that she noticed that I had a lot of pride. My initial reaction? I thought to myself, “Pfff, she does not know what she’s talking about! I am not prideful. I just happen to be right most of the time.” NOT my best thinking, huh? Yep, I was full of pride and so prideful that even when it was called out to me, I did not believe it, I was offended, and I tried to shake it off. (By the way, if someone has called you out for being prideful and you are immediately offended, guess what? You have a pride issue.) While I did not like what my sister said at all, it kept bothering me that she had said that to me. So, I prayed on it. Of course, I completely expected the Lord to confirm my thoughts and to correct my sister…yea, that’s not what happened though. God started showing me where my speech was prideful. He showed me where my actions were being done from a place of pride. He showed me that my thinking was prideful. I was humbled and I repented. I had to work very hard to not give into the stronghold of pride. Sure, I slipped up every so often, but I kept repenting and working on not being prideful.

As I mentioned, offense is a sure sign that you are having a pride issue. Being disappointed in God can lead us to being offended by Him. I know that there are people who have been through unspeakable evil in their lives. People who have major trust issues with God. People who may think, “If God is so loving, so gracious, so perfect, then why did He allow _____ to happen to me? Where was He? Why didn’t He stop it and protect me?” All are valid questions. I, myself, have had these questions, too. I cannot really answer those questions, but whatever a person has been through, they are not alone, unfortunately others have been through extremely similar things – or even worse.

Many years ago, I read a book by R.T. Kendall entitled “Totally Forgiving God: When It Seems He Has Betrayed You”. This book is not implying that God did wrong and needs your forgiveness as one would forgive another person. God has no sin; He does no wrong. (Psalms 5:4) Another person is imperfect, they make mistakes, their actions or words are not always good or righteous. Yet, the sentiment is still the same, choosing to forgive, whether the person (or God) asks for it or not, whether the person (or God) acknowledges any wrongdoing or not. Forgiveness is a choice, just like holding a grudge is a choice, being offended is a choice, bitterness is a choice, pride is a choice, and UN-forgiveness is a choice.

Forgiving God and repenting for your expectations that you put upon Him is the first step in breaking this stronghold of disappointment in God that you have.

Having gone through all of this myself, does not mean that I have never felt disappointment in God again. But I have been able to learn and continue to grow in God, even when my expectations have not been met. Where I am in my walk with God is not where I was those almost 20 years ago when I was called out for being prideful. Where I am today is not where I was even last week! Oh sure, I have my moments, I am an imperfect person after all, but I truly want to do the will of the Father and continue to learn and grow in Him.

Life can be great and wonderful, but it can also be disappointing and not what we hoped it would be – both can be true. The real test comes when things do not go as you had planned, or things did not happen in the timeframe that you wanted, are you going to be disappointed? And, if you are disappointed (which, hey, it happens), how are you going to handle that disappointment – whether it is disappointment in another person or God?

Some words from the Bible to leave you with today. Love and prayers, Sharon

Psalms 34:15-19 “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” (NASB)

Isaiah 41:10 “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” (NASB)

Psalms 42:11 “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” (NASB)

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean upon your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (NASB)

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans that I have for you’, declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” (NASB)

Our Cost of Saying “Yes” To God (Part 2)

Nov28

Tomorrow evening it will be 14 years exactly since Eric, my husband, and I said “Yes” to God. Saying yes to His will, His way, His timing in our lives – in ALL areas of our lives. I do believe that we were saved before we said yes, but I think God was calling us into a deeper understanding and deeper relationship with Him. It can only be God’s timing that this blog series is coming out now. I can’t say that I was planning on writing about this, but God had a different plan.

Not long after we said yes to God, our friends – the ones who had spent Thanksgiving weekend with us 14 years ago (see blog post Our Cost of Saying “Yes” To God) – had been renting a place that their landlady sold and they had to move. After Eric and I prayed much about this, we felt we were to invite them to stay with us until they could find a place to live. They agreed, moved in, and that was the beginning of the end of our friendship. As I look back now, I would describe them as “Sunday morning Christians”. They went to church on Sundays and spoke great “Christianese” (Christian lingo to fake it), but unfortunately God wasn’t that real to them. Our eyes had been opened, and we couldn’t close them – no matter how much I had wanted to. They moved out of our house 6 weeks later, and our friendship ended. We just weren’t on the same path. (2 Cor. 6:14, 17) They did not see a need to change, which was fine, that was their choice. However, we also had a choice and there were certain things that Eric and I would not tolerate in our home. (Psalm 101:7)

In autumn of 2012, we felt God calling us to move to Battle Creek, Michigan. My husband is a very gifted contractor. Seriously, I’m not just being biased, he once had a building inspector tell him that the deck he built was “exquisite”. Eric had a thriving business in Fairview, Montana, when we moved in November of 2012. He closed the business to answer God’s call. (Philippians 3:7) We bought a HUGE fixer upper in Battle Creek. We thought the plan would be for Eric to fix it up and we would be there at least the next 20 years or until Jesus came back – which ever happened first. (We were wrong, but there may be more on that in future blogs.)

Battle Creek proved to be a wilderness experience for us. (Note: Battle Creek, Michigan is a wonderful place, with wonderful people, however, it was a very hard time for us there. We have nothing against Battle Creek or the people, in fact, we do still have loved ones there.) It was hard for Eric to find work, no matter how much promotion, networking, marketing, or advertising we did. He was out of work more often than having work. This wilderness experience took us through some hard valleys. Without realizing it, Eric had come to think of his identity – or at least parts of his identity – as being a contractor, having a thriving business, having customers backed up for months who gladly waited for him to be available to do their work, having our bills always paid on time and in full, having money in the bank, and having an awesome credit score. I believe that many professing Christians would say that Eric was blessed and successful. I think it can be easy to get comfortable with these types of “blessings”, perhaps even rely on these “blessings” as identity markers and I believe that is what happened to Eric over time. (I wrote about some of my personal experience of going through the wilderness in Battle Creek in my blog Let Your Light Shine.)

Eric went through a very hard valley in Battle Creek. God started stripping away little by little everything that Eric had built up to be his identity. So, when everything that Eric built up about himself was gone, you know what Eric was? He was simply God’s son. (John 1:12) His business/vocation, bank accounts, schedule, and credit score had absolutely nothing to do with his identity in God. (Philippians 3:7-10) He was God’s son – period. And that was enough. Eric’s hard valley was equally hard on our marriage and our family. We were both active in the church that we were members of, yet we didn’t find much solace there (mostly from leadership) for everything that we were going through. We were accused of having hidden sin in our lives and that was the reason God wasn’t blessing us. We were encouraged to volunteer at church and ministries and to continue to pay tithing. We were told to take ANY job we could get, no matter what the pay, because God would provide. Some of the people in our “church family” would hire Eric but barely pay him above minimum wage for the work he did. (Note: There were a few others in our church family who were more generous with Eric’s pay and craftsmanship.) It was a long, hard valley and a lot of people (like some in our church family or our extended family) didn’t seem to understand what we were going through, yet many had one answer or another as to why we were in this situation. It wasn’t until the autumn of 2016 when Eric went to seminary and was assigned a book to read that helped him to understand what we were going through. It’s called “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” by Peter Scazzero. In the book Eric learned about “the Wall – Stages of Faith” and a work of St. John of the Cross entitled “Dark Night of the Soul”. I’m going to give an incredibly small nutshell of “the Wall”, but I would encourage you to read the book for yourselves. The Wall is where many Christians stop in their walk with God. Things get too hard, God seems silent, seemingly nobody understands what’s going on with them – pretty much everything we went through in our wilderness experience. Once Eric read this book and shared it with me, we realized, “Yes, this is what we’re going through!”. It was nice to at least know what was going on, but that information didn’t change our circumstances – at least not in the physical and not right away. We grew in that moment and in those moments to come spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. (Colossians 2:6-7) We weren’t going crazy, we weren’t hiding sin in our lives, we weren’t lazy, or too proud to work for peanuts – no, we were in a wilderness, a valley with God. However, we weren’t alone, God was with us! In the wilderness there were many times that it seemed like God was silent, but He was still there. (Psalm 23:4) Through this experience we learned more about the depths of God’s character than we had previously known. He became real to us in ways that we wouldn’t have known, had we not gone through the wilderness. (James 1:2-4, 12) We grew closer to God and have continued to do so, but the trials haven’t ended in our lives. God is still refining us; He cares very much about our character development. A good parent cares about the character of their child, right? So, wouldn’t the perfect Parent – God – care even more about the character development of His children? Of course He does! (Romans 5:3-5)

This is one area of our lives that was dramatically changed because of saying “Yes” to God. It doesn’t mean He will necessarily work this way in everyone, but this is our story, our testimony. I want to end with a passage of Scripture that I referenced in this blog.

Philippians 3:7-11 “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Our Cost of Saying “Yes” To God (Part 1)

Nov21

Note: As I sat down to write this blog earlier this week, I had many thoughts come to me about what our lives (mine and my husband Eric’s) have been like since we said “Yes” to God in all areas of our lives. We have lost family, friends, and income over the years. However, we have also gained much. We have grown in our marriage with God and in our own personal walks with God. Today, it occurred to me as I was writing this, that this will not be “A” blog, but a blog series. I have no idea how many blogs will be in the series, but let’s begin.

In November of 2011, Thanksgiving weekend, one night seemingly out of nowhere God said to me, “I want to take you higher. Are you willing to go?” When God asks a question, there’s weight to it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what He meant by “higher”, but after a moment of contemplation, I said, “Yes.” This happened in the evening one night, I believe it was Saturday, I was standing outside on our small porch in Fairview, Montana, while I was waving goodbye to friends who had spent Thanksgiving weekend with us. After the lights of their car faded from sight, I stayed outside in the cool weather wondering what God had meant and wondering why He even asked me. Did the Creator of the universe really need my permission before He wanted to do something in my life? I have no answer for this. After awhile, I went back inside and told my husband Eric what had just happened. When he heard, he too said “Yes” to God. NOTHING has been the same in our lives since then.

This is one of those moments where we are counseled in Scripture to count the cost of following Jesus. Did we count the cost? Honestly, I don’t think we did. Eric and I have often talked about what God asked us back in November of 2011, and we’ve challenged ourselves with the question, “If we knew that all of this would happen, would we still have said ‘Yes’ to God?” Our answer is typically something like, “I don’t know, I hope so, but I just don’t know.” There is a cost to saying “yes” to God.

By us putting God first (not ourselves, or each other; not our children; not parents, or any other human) we shortly realized that we were swimming against the mainstream Christianity that we had once been a part of. That was not our intention, as a matter of fact, I doubt either one of us even thought that that was what we were doing. We were focused on God and His calling, trying to be obedient to Him in all things. We didn’t mean to ruffle anyone’s feathers, or be offensive to anyone, or “unchristian” as some people have accused us of. We were simply trying to do the will of the Father as Jesus said to. (Matthew 7:21 and 12:50) Shouldn’t those who were coming against us – the ones who professed to be Christians – have been the ones who accepted us, stood by us, and encouraged us? Like the church of Acts in the Bible, “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-47 NASB)

Why was it so hard for people that we knew to accept that we were going to pray about a matter and then do as we felt led by God’s Spirit? Isn’t that what we are supposed to do if we are God’s people? Eric and I didn’t want to rely on human logic, or what our “feelings” were in a situation, or what we thought was right. We wanted to do His will, period.

This is when we started to realize that if we did something that was not in line with people’s perception of what was “right”, if their expectation of us was not met, then we were called “unchristian” or “unloving”; we were in error. We have even been accused that we “don’t serve the same God” as them. On that one, I may have to agree, though there would have been a time when I would have thought that we served the same God – Yahweh.

Over the coming weeks I will dive into more of what our life, our testimony has been even since that “meeting” with God in 2011. This is what saying “Yes” to God looked like for us.

Psalm 23

Nov13

“1) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want 2) He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3) He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. 4) Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5) You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6) Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (NASB)

Recently I was praying and this prayer just came from within me. I don’t recall the last time I prayed this passage of Scripture, but as I was praying these words, I could feel a stirring in me to write about them.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”, seems pretty straight forward, but if you stop and really think about the words,” the Lord is my shepherd”. What is a shepherd? I won’t do the dictionary “thing” I usually do, most of us know what a shepherd is, right? The shepherd is the one in charge of the herd. The shepherd guides the sheep, protects the sheep, takes care of the sheep. Sure, the shepherd is the one in charge – if you will – but the shepherd is also the one who has the most accountability over the herd.

“I shall not want”. Ouch! Seriously, I shall not want? Like anything? We live in a society where many things that we want we can get practically with a click on the phone, right? I shall not want – four simple words, yet, if you allow them to, they can grab a hold of you and convict you. So, the Lord is my shepherd. He’s the One in charge, not me, He will correct me, take care of me, provide for me and I shall not want.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures”. Have you ever seen or walked through a green pasture? (I’m not talking about a cow pasture, lol, that is NOT the same thing!) A green pasture is lush, vibrant in its green tones because it has been nourished and is thriving. I once heard someone say that everyone should take their shoes off and walk around in soft green grass once every day, because it’s relaxing. Obviously, that’s an opinion, although I do agree with it. There is something about being surrounded by a lush, green pasture that is relaxing, perhaps even enough to lie down in it.

“He leads beside quiet waters”. I grew up in Oscoda, Michigan, a beach town on Lake Huron. I LOVE everything about the beach. When there is a body of water before you and it is still, there is something quite peaceful about it. Perhaps there’s a small ripple, but audibly it is quiet. Not great for surfers, but peaceful and still, calming to the spirit. So, He (the Lord) has lush green pastures to lie down in for rest and relaxation, and He leads us to still, quiet waters.

“He restores my soul”. I’m not going to say this is 100% accurate, but I have always been taught that our soul is our mind, will, and emotions. Since this is my understanding, I’m going to work within that understanding for this verse. Most of us have felt mental exhaustion, had racing thoughts, and have bad memories. Most of us have made really good choices, and we’ve most likely made really bad choices as well. Most of us have felt overwhelmed, stressed, or betrayed. It says right there in the 23rd Psalm that He – the Lord, our Shepherd – “restores my soul”. He can restore our minds, He can restore our free will (our choices), He can restore our emotions. We do not have to keep feeling the way we feel; those feelings are just that, feelings – feelings are fluid, they change and God can restore them.

“He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake”. Maybe you don’t think of your life as a path, but that symbolism is used quite regularly in Scripture. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus talks about a narrow gate and a wide gate. Many people refer to it (myself included) as a narrow path and a wide path. The narrow path leads to the Lord, while the wide path (the easy way) leads to destruction. Our Lord, the Shepherd, guides us on this narrow path, or “paths of righteousness, for His name’s sake”. The Lord can do nothing “less than”. He is holy, righteous, pure; His standard is extremely high and He cannot lower His standards – that would be less than holy, that would be less than righteous, that would be less than pure and He simply cannot do that. The Lord – our Shepherd – restores our souls and He guides us in paths of righteousness.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me”. One thing that was brought to my attention years ago was that it doesn’t read, “If I walk through the shadow of death” – no, it reads “Even though…”. Those words can almost guarantee that we will ALL have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Let’s look at the rest of the verse because we don’t need the mention of death to trip us up – “I fear no evil, for You are with me”. If God is for you, who can really be against you? (Romans 8:31) In my time on this earth, I’ve noticed that fear is a mighty tool in the toolbox of satan. I know it has definitely worked on me, especially in the past. Fear would grip me for various reasons; my heartbeat would pick up fast, my stomach would seem to fall to somewhere unknown, a grip would tighten around me, a cold sweat would start to develop. As I’m typing this, I’m actually shaking my head. I remember those feelings and I hated it every single time it happened. I was trapped by the enemy, and the name of his trap was called fear and it would get me, over and over again for many years. Fear becomes a mental stronghold that needs to be broken. In my own personal experience, the longer fear is allowed to stay, the more control of your life you have handed over to fear. Fear is running the show (controlling you) and now it is even harder to break the mental stronghold of fear. It is absolutely NOT impossible to break though, but one has to be willing to face the fears (however many there may be) and let God help you. There is only one fear that is righteous and that is the fear of the Lord. Not to be fearful of Him as in afraid and trying to hide from Him, no, that’s not what I mean at all. A fear of the Lord is honoring to Him, you believe who He is and you love Him so much that you don’t want to partake in anything that He is not in. You don’t want to look at pornography because that is not honoring God. You don’t want to get drunk or do drugs, because that is not honoring God. It also means, you don’t want to lie, because that doesn’t honor God. You don’t want to be abusive in your speech, with your hands, with your position at church, or work because that doesn’t honor God. Fear of the Lord does mean that you want to honor God with your speech (Ephesians 4:29), with your thoughts (Philippians 4:8), with your actions (1 Corinthians 10:31), with your time (Ephesians 5:15-16), with your choices (Joshua 24:15). No matter what we walk through, we need to not give fear a foothold in our lives, for we are not alone.

“Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me”. The rod is usually spoken of as a rod of discipline from God. Now how can discipline be comforting? When we know the boundaries with God, we know what lines to not cross (as I mentioned some in the previous paragraph). If we know the boundaries and if we choose to stay within those boundaries, guess what? There’s comfort within the boundaries of God. Staff is usually referencing the shepherd’s staff that is used to help guide the sheep, keep them in line, or to use to rescue them if needed. Again, I can’t say getting a thump from a shepherd’s staff is what I want to receive, but if I need it, then I guess I need it, right? Correction or discipline is not always fun, but it is always necessary. (Hebrews 12:11) Even in the shadow of death God has not left us and He corrects us when needed so we can make it to the narrow gate.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows”. This verse is one that had caused some head scratching for me growing up. My thought was, “Why would I want to eat food in front of my enemies? I don’t want to be anywhere near them!”  Obviously, I was much too young to understand what God was doing. To be honest, I’m not going to claim that I have it all figured out now either. Imagine sitting down in a chair at a table and the table is being prepared for you – the tablecloth is laid down, the plates, cups, silverware are being put into place. You have a fine, crisp white napkin tucked under your chin and into your shirt collar. Now, trays of food are brought out from the kitchen, freshly prepared just for you, just the way you like your food – absolutely perfect. Now imagine that as you are about to eat, you see people before you who have lied about you, gossiped about you, criticized you, mocked you, and betrayed you. People who caused divisions within your family, within your workplace, within your business. People who stole from you, who set you up for a fall. People who mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually abused you. However, your focus is not on them – they are there, trust me, they’re there, but they can’t hurt you, for the Lord is with you. One could say, you can have your cake and eat it too. It’s as if God is showing you off to your enemies, standing right behind you, and saying to your enemies, “Look, I know what you did to My child and I want you to witness that I am providing for My child, I am causing all things to work together for good for My child, I am protecting My child, I will defend My child, I will recompense for My child, I have anointed My child to be set apart, I have anointed My child for My purpose, I cause My child’s cup to overflow, I LOVE My child – I just wanted you to know that.” To me, that is the ultimate mike drop.

“Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life”. Does anyone honestly, truthfully feel like goodness and lovingkindness follow them? Honestly, there are times I don’t feel that way at all. That being said, just because I feel that way doesn’t mean that it’s true – it’s just how I feel, it’s my perspective at the moment. Isaiah 52:12 and 58:8 both mention God being our rear guard. So, what is a rear guard? According to a dictionary look up on the internet, “rear guard – the soldiers positioned at the rear of a body of troops, especially those protecting an army when it is in retreat”. Since God is good and loving and kind, (all of those being fruits of His Spirit) to say that “surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me” would be accurate if one thinks of God as covering us from behind, as well as in front, and all around.

“And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”. To me, this is more of a hope, a desire, a prayer, for the time here on earth but also with a view on eternity with God. No human knows the future perfectly, only One does and He is not human. Ending the Psalm with this is looking at the present time, but also looking forward to what is yet to come. It can also cause us to question ourselves with this: do we care more about the here and now on this earth or do we care more about the Lord? (Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36, Luke 9:25)

A verse to leave you with, Matthew 6:19-21, (Jesus is speaking), “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal: for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (NASB)