The Lord Is My Shepherd
Take a pause - a real pause. Breathe deeply in and out a few times.
Now take a moment to read Psalm 23. Slow down between the punctuation marks. Let the words sink in.
The Lord is my shepherd; I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely Your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
There are infinite ways to finish a sentence that begins with the words, “The Lord…”
But who is the Lord? What is His character? Does He have a good enough resume to be my shepherd, my owner, and my leader?
YES.
The Lord God the Father, Creator of the universe and all its vast galaxies, is your shepherd.
YES.
The Lord God, Jesus, became human and died for you, in your place, so that you might be led through this life and the next, under His good guidance and leadership.
YES.
The Lord God, the Holy Spirit, shepherds you through life’s deepest valleys and protects you from the darts of the Evil One.
That Lord is your shepherd. Right now. Always. And everyone knows you belong to him.
In the ancient world, shepherds would sometimes mark their sheep with a distinctive identifying mark so that they could be recognized as belonging to a particular shepherd. The mark would go in the lobe of each sheep’s ear. The mark was distinct to that shepherd. (Side note: if I were a shepherd, I would go with the #19. Favorite number because my son, my wife, and I all have birthdays on 19th)
The Old Testament also gives us a striking picture of what it meant to belong to a household for life. If a Hebrew servant chose to remain with his master permanently, his ear was pierced against the doorpost with an awl. He was marked as belonging to that household.
We are marked.
We bear the mark of the man from Nazareth.
In our baptisms, we received His death and resurrection. We were marked as belonging to Christ. We are His sheep. We take up his cross daily to follow after Him. And no one can take that mark away.
Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38–39).
So head back into your day.
Go comforted. Go confident. Go knowing that you belong to the Good Shepherd.
You are marked as His.
The Lord is my shepherd.
