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The Lord is Our Good Shepherd! (Part 4)

(Overcomer Wu)

“The Lord is my Shepherd... He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul” --Psalms 23:1-3a

Last time, we saw the vital need for us to first come to rest in the Lord and be supplied by Him before we can be of use to Him to minister to the needs of others. In reality, it is Christ as the Spirit in His Word (Jn 6:63) who gives life. It’s Christ who is the Living Water and the Bread of Heaven. We have to frist spend quality time with Him and be filled with Him so that we have something of Spirit and His Life-giving Word to give to others. After we’ve poured into others’ lives, we come back to Him to become replenished. Mark 6:30-31 tells us that the disciples returned to Jesus after an active ministry trip and reported to Jesus all they had done and taught and He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a desolate place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.” They had poured into other lives, and now they needed to get refilled and replenished. It is in those quiet times with the Lord that we get replenished so we are able to go back out and face the needy crowds again. And we need it on a daily and even moment by moment basis. Thus, the Lord Jesus used the picture of the Vine in John 15 to illustrate our constant need to draw our supply from Him, because the moment a branch is severed from the Vine, it ceases to receive the life supply from it.

Most of us are quite familiar with this verse: "Be still and know that I am God” (Psa. 46:10). I believe that when we are asked to “be still” it's not just a matter of being quiet and stop from our frenzy pace for a minute, but rather that we also need to take time to receive our refreshment, replenishment, and be restored by God for our whole being. Some of us wait until we have a burnt-out or a crisis before we quiet down before the Lord. Don’t wait until you’ve gone into this hyper-stressed mode. "He makes me lie down in green pastures: He leads me beside waters of rest.” This should be our daily way of life.

God has appointed a day of rest for man from the beginning because He knows we need it. In fact, as I have mentioned several times that it should not just be on the Lord's day, but it needs to be our daily normal routine to come to the Lord in His Word with an open and quiet heart and an attentive spirit to hear the Lord's speaking and to receive His supply. We live in a world of constant interruptions and endless list of things that could cause us anxieties. You need time in your life when you turn off all your electronics – your cell phones, Ipod, computer, TV, DVD player, etc. It's easy to be addicted to such things. Take breaks within the course of the day to quiet our spirit before the Lord and be replenished by the “green pastures and the still waters” that only He can provide. We can’t be cramming every waking moment with our own agenda, activity, conversation and programs and expect to find rest in the Lord. We need time to receive His Word of life and allow the washing of the water in the Word to wash away our negative worldly contamination, our anxieties that brings wrinkles to our face, and elements of our old man that gives us grief and strife in our spirit; we need time to be with the Lord and simply be permeated with His Life and be those who have ear to hear His speaking like Mary did as opposed to Martha. It may mean making some tough choices. If we don’t, we will end up like an frazzled, frantic, frustrated and fatigued Martha, who missed out on the “One thing that is needful.”

Now please do not misunderstand, by spending time on the green pastures and the quiet restful water with the Lord, I’m not advocating being lazy or about shirking responsibility. I’m not talking about laying back in a spa, have a stroll by a quiet lake with your friends or even by yourself, and live a comfortable life with maids serving you all day long. We’re called to be diligent athletes, to be soldiers, and farmers (2 Tim 2:3-6). However, I am talking about ordering our life around the Lord as the center, giving Him the preeminent position in our lives. This is also for our own good. As our spirit is nourished and our hearts are rested in the Lord, we are ready for the challenges of life, to battle the enemy and to minister to the need of others. How we need to heed the leading of the Lord when He bids us to follow Him to the “green pastures and the still waters!”

"He Restores My Soul"

We also need the restoration of our soul over and again. A more literal translation of this verse based on the Hebrew original text is, "He refreshes my soul" The word "refreshes" used in the Old Testament Hebrew many times means to turn around, to turn back, to return, to refresh, to revive. The basic meaning of this word is a movement back to the place of departure. It is the tendency of sheep to stray from the Shepherd. Isaiah 53:6 says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.” If we allow Him, the Lord will bring us back to where we have left that intimacy we had with the Shepherd. Thus, “restore” is also a good translation. Yet for Him to "restore” us requires that we need to humble ourselves enough to say, "Lord, I have gone astray from You. I need You to restore me back to Yourself." If we have strayed from the Lord as our First Love, we need to pray, “Lord restore unto me 'the love of our betrothal, when I went after you in the wilderness...' (Jere 2:2).”

The shepherd knows when his sheep are hungry, thirsty, weary, when they have gone astray from him. Not only do we need the Lord as our Good Shepherd to find refreshments for us – food and water and a place to rest – but we oftentimes need Him to turn us back when we're headed in the wrong direction or restore us when we are completely lost. There are times when we have strayed so far off from the flock that the Shepherd needed to leave the other sheep in order to search us out and bring us back to the flock, the place of departure. We need both to be refreshed and restored: when we are weak and fainting, we need to be refreshed; but when we are wayward and failing, we need the Lord to restore us. To the church in Ephesus in the book of Revelations chapter two verse five, He said, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place — unless you repent.” In other words, the church in Ephesus had gone astray by leaving the Lord as her First Love. The Lord wanted her to be restored by asking her to “remember... from where you have fallen.” Then she needs to “repent.” To repent literally means to have a change of mind or a 180 degree change in direction. This is consistent also with the meaning of the word “restore” as stated above, which includes to turn around or to turn back to the place of our departure.

There are three common things that cause us to be weak and weary. First, when we have been laboring and pouring ourselves out in serving others we get depleted; thus, we need to get our refreshed and replenished. God uses His Word to restore our souls. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” (Psa 19:7). Second, when we have suffered either physically, emotionally, or mentally, or we have been through times of persecutions from the enemy, we need likewise to be refreshed and rejuvenated. First Peter 5:10 tells us, "But may the God of all grace, ... after you have suffered a while, shall perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.” – it may seem like a long while, but in the light of eternity it is just a little while – “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Praise the Lord for the Grace that is sufficient to carry us through these times of momentary (though it may be long in human perception) sufferings!

Third, there are moments in our lives when we are wayward and fallen away either in sinned, or stumbled by a brother, or simply strayed into worldly self-seeking. It is fitting that the Lord liken us to sheep because sheep are notoriously dumb and have a tendency to wander away from the flock and they do not have a good sense of homing instinct like horses, dogs, or cats do. When a sheep wander off and darkness would fall on the land, that sheep is hopelessly lost be an easy prey for a wild predatory animal or he might fall off a cliff since he cannot rest and stay in one place when it is in a lost-panic state. The hymn writer puts it very well, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it; Prone to leave the God I love...” Thank the Lord that our Good Shepherd would leave the ninety nine sheep and search for us until we are brought back into the safety of His care and with His flock. When he found us in our lost estate, he would put us on His shoulders and carry is back to the flock. Praise the Lord! "He restores my soul!”

King David, who is the writer of this psalm, understood this very. He had that experience with Bathsheba, when he had been wayward and was shamefully carried away by his sinful lust. He prayed in Psalm 51:12: "O Lord, restore to me the joy of Your salvation.” If we had to remain in the guilt and the shame of our failures, our spirit would always be drooping and fainting. But He restores and forgives when we repent and turn back to Him in brokenness and with a contrite heart and spirit before Him. He restores our spirit and soul back to our sweet fellowship with Him and fruitfulness. He restores to us the joy of our salvation. You may have sinned willfully or overtly, or you may have left your first love by wandering off and drawn off by worldliness and pursuit of fame, fortune, prestige and position. You need to be restored. Aren’t you glad that the Lord will not give us up? The Lord will search for us and even wait for us until we are ready to be restored? With Christ as our Shepherd, there is no hopeless situation as bleak as our situations may seem; and it is never too late repent and return to Him no matter how far off you have wandered from Him. Like the prodigal son's father, He is always there waiting for you to return and receive you with wide open arms and to put the best robe on you.

Since the Lord loves us dearly, we know that He uses chastening sometimes to restore us (Rev 3:19) to a place of repentance and obedience. He also uses His Word and His Spirit; as well as negative things such as disappointment and failures at our own ventures and vain pursuits. I am thankful that He can and does fully restore the years that the locusts have eaten when we fully turn back to Him and rededicate ourselves to Him (Joel 2:25). We all need that, not just once or periodically, but regularly. "Times of refreshing…come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). Thus we know to Whom we need to go to receive our times of refreshing. We need to go to Lord Jesus Christ! "Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden...” (Matt 11:28). And the Lord assured us that “he who comes to Me, I will by no means cast out” (Jn 6:37b). Many have turned to music, meditation, medications, entertainment and vacations in an attempt to seek their human form of refreshing, but we know that never last and they never truly suffice our soul's inner longing for the true refreshing from our soul and spirit's weariness and thirst, which can only come from the Lord Himself. True restoration and refreshing to our souls can only be found in the innermost being of our hearts; and that cannot be reached and satisfied by external possessions, places, entertainment, or activities, or the lack thereof. In short, true restoration and refreshment to our soul and spirit can only be found in the Person of Christ, our Good Shepherd! Thus, one of our prime objectives as a Christian should be to stay as close to our Shepherd as we possibly can and follow Him closely, because the almighty, omniscient God, the Possessor of the heavens and earth, has made a covenant with you to love us, and offered to protect and provide for us!