He Leadeth Me: The Good Shepherd Takes Care of His Sheep

Oh, the sufficiency and completeness of the Lord Jesus. With Him we lack no good thing. He allows our settings to be as beside quiet waters as He, the Living Water is Himself our peace. It is never Jesus plus anything else. It is always, only Jesus. He desires to fill our cups to overflowing so that we are no longer needy rather sufficient in Him – Who is our sufficiency and strength no matter how hard the winds may be howling. Unlike the world that seeks to “pretty up” the package, Jesus seeks to change us from the inside out. And what He is looking for is a willing and contrite heart. He is always faithful, but are we?

Oftentimes, we find ourselves kicking against God’s best for our lives. Pouting and pitching a fit over His provisions and directions. Seeking to live out the delusions of our own minds rather than His good and pleasing and perfect will. Ask me how I know. We don’t like where we are and like two year olds we scream for a change. And God says, this is going to take longer, much longer, until we finally - at long last - willingly embrace what He allows, knowing for certain that what is allowed always has our best interest at heart though we perhaps are clueless as how. He is indeed the Master of making beauty out of our ashes, the oil of gladness out of our mourning’s and a garment of praise instead of our spirits of despair. His desire is to make “oaks of righteousness” out of each of His children and we want that as well as we are the ultimate losers if we do not allow Him to by our own poor choices. Why would we want to waste this one life on things of a much lesser nature and value? We aren’t to think worldly rather heavenly.  

I am presently 72 years old and it feels as if yesterday I was 12. I look back over all the places He has taken me and all the things He has patiently taught me – more often than not with me kicking and screaming - and I would not give anything for what He has poured into me. Sadly, so very often, not by my own choosing rather by His. John Newton’s amazing quote on the will comes to mind and with this I close:

“It is natural for us to wish and to plan, and it is merciful of the Lord to disappoint our plans and to cross our wishes. For we cannot be safe or happy until we are weaned from our own wills and made simply desirous of being directed by His guidance. Although we understand this we seldom learn to put it into practice without being trained for a while in the school of disappointment. The schemes we form look so plausible and convenient that when they are broken we are ready to say, ‘What a pity!’ We try again, and with no better success; we are grieved, and perhaps angry, and plan another, and so on; eventually, in the course of time, experience and observation begin to convince us that we are no more able than we are worthy to choose correctly for ourselves. The Lord’s invitation to cast our cares upon Him, and His promise to take care of us, appear valuable; and when we have done planning, His plan in our favor gradually opens, and He does more and better for us than we could either ask or think. I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, which if it had taken place in the time and the way I wanted would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or at least would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me. We judge things by their present appearance; but the Lord sees them in their consequences. If we could do the same we would be perfectly of His mind; but since we can’t, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is regarded as one of His heaviest judgments when He gives any person up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk according to their own wisdom.”