Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Life: A Box of Chocolates


I don’t know about you, but I can’t think about Valentine’s Day without the image of these heart-shaped boxes popping into my head.  I always felt like these boxes were the food version of Russian roulette….each candy was an unknown and the only way to find out if you were going to like each piece was to take a little bite out of it. 

In the movie Forrest Gump, one of Forrest’s most infamous lines is “Momma always said life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get”.  There’s some words of wisdom there….

While I wouldn’t call myself a control freak, I’m definitely a planner. I always want to know what the next step is and where I’m heading in the grand scheme of things. That being said, sometimes it’s hard to trust the Lord in the unknown, but Psalm 23 calls Him our Shepherd.   

I honestly never spent much time studying the 23rd Psalm until this year.  Until now I really only associated that text with funerals, but we’ve been in Psalms 23 for several weeks in Children’s church and its definitely challenged the control freak or “planner” inside of me.

This Psalm is usually classified as a psalm of confidence in the Lord’s care.  In other words, it’s about trusting that God is in control and will take care of you. Unfortunately, if you’re anything like me, you’d rather have a “guide” telling you all the answers so that you can know what flavor each piece of candy is before you commit or take that step of faith. 

But a Shepherd cares for His sheep; He guides them, and the sheep’s job is simply to follow.  Sheep are always called stupid…I’ve been told that they’ll even get themselves stuck in a corner and are too dumb to realize that all they need to do is back up.  They NEED a Shepherd, but so do we. 

Those first four verses tell us that we can trust Him.  We don’t have to know everything that the future holds, because we have a Shepherd that will guide and protect us; we just have to follow and obey Him. 

Verses 5 & 6 tell us that the Lord cares for His people.   Verse 6 says that God’s goodness and love follow us all the days of our lives.  While we, like sheep are easily distracted from the Shepherd’s direction, His goodness and love never leave us.  We can trust the Shepherd with our hearts even when life is unpredictable and we never know what we’re gonna get.

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,[a]
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.