The Lord Is My Shepherd

We have all seen vintage pictures of Jesus carrying little lambs. In fact, your church nursery may have a version of those images hanging on the wall. When we look at those pictures we see tenderness and compassion. Yes, Jesus is tender and compassionate, but He can be strong and fierce when needed. I’m thankful the Lord is MY Shepherd.

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The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

The life of a shepherd is hard. The sleepless nights keeping watch over sick sheep, making sure there is plenty of grass and water for them to eat and drink, and providing preventative care and protection from predators. There are even those repetitive times of keeping sheep in the fold, safe and accounted for. Knowing each sheep by name, that boggles my mind since many of them look alike.

We are just like those sheep. We have times of illness, leanness in the budget, and of course, we have all been that one little sheep who has wandered too far away. Each time a gentle hand from our Shepherd has been there to help guide us along the way. A gentle touch, a gentle reminder of Who we need to keep our eyes on at all times.

While our Shepherd has a gentleness about Him, He also has a strong and fierce presence in our lives. He has given so much for us; He is not going to just leave us alone to do as we please. When we step further away from Jesus, He is going to bring us back and how He does it is going to depend on us. If we continue moving away, that gentleness will become stronger until we are brought back into the fold.(Once we become a child of God, we belong to Him and He is going to do what it takes to keep us close by.) When we are brought back, we will be picked up, dusted off, wounds will be cared for and we will be treated like nothing ever happened.

Jesus is also our protector (Psalm 28:7, Psalm 33:20) and will go to battle for us. When He enters a battle, He fights to win it. When we are dealing with difficult situations, we need to remember it’s not the situation or the person, but the one who is using that situation or person to get to us while trying to bring Jesus down. (Ephesians 6:12)

We can’t fight Satan on our own, but our Shepherd can and He will get the victory.(Romans 12:19)

When I look at my life -

I am thankful for a gentle yet strong Shepherd.

Have you read the book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23? If not, I highly recommend it. It was required reading when I was in college. I loved it so much, I kept the book after all these years and reread it often.