Shepherd

Do you ever find yourself  looking back at life and wondering if things turned out 

just the way they were supposed to...
or if the choices you made interrupted the perfect plan that could have been?

No? Oh, okay...I'll shut up now.
Wait.
Can I be honest?
I think about this alot at times.

I look back at different times in my life and I think to myself
why did that situation turn out the way it did?
Was it my own doing? My choices?
 Did God allow certain things to take place in my life 
to ultimately bring Himself glory?
 Maybe it's both...
Maybe God allowed things into my life, knowing full well what my response would be,
so that in the end the story of his grace, forgiveness, and faithfulness
would make His glory shine.

I guess I start to struggle with guilt when I think about it too long.
And I have to remember that
God is faithful even when his children are not. 
(Max Lucado)


 It's easy to look back and see all the things we would have done differently were we given the opportunity.
It's easy to feel like we don't quite measure up because of  where we've been.
I remember sitting in a college Sunday school class one day where everyone voiced where they thought they'd be in 5 years. I said something along the lines of wanting to be married with a family...I said regardless of what happened in those 5 years, I wanted to be faithful. 


I failed miserably. 


I battled some of the darkest days of my life during those years.
I ran hard and fast from what I felt God asking me to do,
and I still wonder to this day what the outcome would have been
had I simply obeyed.

But I didn't and I can't go back now.
And I guess what I've come to realize is that no matter how far down the wrong road you go,
you can always turn around. 
You'll still have to travel the long road back home...
that's just the natural consequence of choosing our own way,
but you won't walk that road alone.

Shortly before the major turning point I had during those hard years, my sister Katie called me up out of the blue and said that the Lord just kept putting me on her heart that day.
I told her how I was struggling and that I was tired.
I was tired of running.
Not long after that conversation she sent me an email with a story she'd heard...
It's stuck with me ever since.

A shepherd has the important job of protecting his sheep from danger. He must always keep his eye on them, making certain that they don't wander off.  The safest place for a sheep to stay is at the shepherd's side. 

Mature sheep obviously have learned this, or they wouldn't have survived. 

When a lamb insists on wandering away and absolutely refuses to stay where it is safe, the shepherd must resort to a drastic measure in order to preserve the sheep's life. 

He breaks one of it's legs. 

This seems so cruel!! But it is the only way that a lamb will learn. The shepherd binds up the leg so that it will heal, then carries that lamb on his shoulders as the flock moves from place to place. 

Eventually the broken leg heals and the lamb is free to go where it pleases.  But by this time the sheep has become close to the shepherd and no longer wants to wander off. 

That lamb keeps his eyes on his shepherd all the time. 

The things that used to tempt him to run, are no longer appealing. 

He knows the hurt.

He'd much rather stay close to his shepherd. 

I was reminded this week of who my shepherd is.
It's Jesus.
He knows my heart, my fears, my failures, my regrets, my hurts, my joys, my desires.
When I struggle with big questions,
he gives big answers.
When I struggle with great weakness,
he reveals his great power.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul...

source

Courage

There are few of us in this world today that can truthfully say they have never experienced brokenness. It touches each life at one point or another. Whether through divorce, abuse, losing a child, betrayal....the grim list goes on and on, but we've all felt it. 

We wrestle with the questions that plague our minds....

the ones that won't seem to hush as our weary heads hit the pillow.

We seek answers. We seek control over our vulnerability. We seek anything that could somehow justify what we have experienced. We want to know that what has happened mattered.

That it matters to someone, anyone besides just us. 

It does. 

The right kind of love gives strength. It covers a multitude of sins. It gives hope where we had none. 

It allows us to live courageously.

Because we begin to learn that in our own strength, we are the broken. We live in fear. 

Fear of being hurt, fear of being vulnerable, fear of trusting, of trying....of failing. 

But when we live by a different strength....we can do all things.

We can choose forgiveness and find it flowing freely from our hearts.

We can choose grace and give it abundantly to those who have hurt us. 

We can choose courage to press on when the days are hard and our emotions are raw.

We can do this because God makes us new.

 Death touches all things...marriages, homes, relationships, trust, hope...those things all have the ability to die.

But when you know Him in a real, personal way God gives new life....

because Jesus conquered death. 

That means you can choose to forget too.

You will still find yourself at times remembering the brokenness. But it won't own you anymore. 

Not when you choose to be strong and courageous....

not when you choose to forget what is behind you, and reach-strive-strain for what is to come.

I know this is true.

It's the story of my life.

Linking up with Casey....