I Shall Not Want
Another 2 month gap in the blog — sigh…. The best-laid schemes….
For the past few days, I’ve had a passage from the 23rd Psalm in my head: “I shall not want,” or as I have heard it elsewhere: “I shall lack nothing.” I assume it’s in my head because this semester I start my job search and my dissertation completion grant — eek! So it’s reassuring, during this time of radical uncertainty about my life, to be reminded of the LORD as my shepherd and provider. I shall lack nothing, because God leads me beside still waters and into green pastures. Even should death loom over me, I need not fear, for God is my protector and my comforter.
One of the corollaries to this verse has been a re-examination of what it means to know God as my shepherd. God does not merely provide and protect, but when I wander off, God comes after me and brings me home. This idea speaks to my own fear that I will fail to hear God’s voice regarding what I should do, where I should apply, which jobs to consider, etc. (”Fail to hear” naturally includes “not pay attention to because something else seems more interesting.”) I have to admit that my life so far has been sort of a zigzag and that I’m never quite sure if the zigzag was God’s route or my own; so I’m nervous about heading off in the wrong direction again. But the Psalm reminds me that the Shepherd will come for me to bring me back to safety and better pasture.
I will trust in this promise; I certainly don’t have the wisdom to make these choices on my own!
Psalm 8
What are we that God takes notice of us? That God should take care of us?
Dust. We are as dust. To God, even the Earth is but a speck of dust in the universe. How is it that we, who are so small even on our own world, should find favor with a Creator who holds galaxies as rings on his fingers?
We have nothing to commend us to God except God’s own love and promises. We have no power except that which God gives to us. No strength except what God allows. No authority except what God grants.
The greatness of God is found in God’s attention to us, God’s creation of us, God’s love for us. We who are among the smallest creatures in the universe are near the pinnacle of creation, created in God’s own image. Our greatness lies in that image.
We are blessed by God beyond all reason, beyond all expectation or hope. But we have nothing to commend ourselves outside of God’s image.
Praises be to God, who sees us in our weakness and in our smallness and who still rejoices over us when we place our trust in him.
Amen, and amen.
