“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.”
John 10:14
Who can understand this tremendous scriptural truth? To be shepherded by him is the ultimate evidence that we are truly loved. To say that he cares for me is a mystery and an astonishment.
Good Shepherd, be patient And I know you will There is much confusion And honestly, there is no peace.Bear me up, hold me close.
I’m your wandering lamb And an obstinate sheep. Good Shepherd, be patient.
There are intricacies in my heart, Which never cease to surprise me As I twist myself to the light.
Good Shepherd, be patient, Encountering a resistance, a well That bubbles up within. Ashamed, and yet brazen.
Good Shepherd, be patient with me An immense glory is waiting, Given freely by one who knows (me)
Golden is Your name, secure and safe. Good Shepherd, you are patient.
Let Him shepherd you. Jesus earnestly wishes that you embrace his care, he stays available 24/7, 365 days a year. When things get really hard, he will come and carry you to green pastures. Those pastures are in His heart, and He is thrilled to show you them. This would be a good time to ask others to pray for you.
I lived in the inner city of San Francisco from 1986-1989. I was a full-time missionary and lived in community called SOS. There were about 10 believers, and we were committed to doing high visibility evangelism, “taking the Church on the street.” We all lived in an old Victorian in the Mission district.
I will not minimize the difficulty and danger of the streets combined with our ministry’s approach. Not only was it hard, but we also lived in a hard place. Our neighbors were heroin addicts, and we lived just a couple of doors down from the “largest lesbian rock-roll bar west of the Mississippi.”
Directly behind our house was an alley that was as bad as you can imagine; addicts and winos had basically taken over. It was full of trash, feces, and urine. And in the hot summer it would make your eyes water. It really was awful.
Please keep reading.
One hot summer day I decided to clean up part of our alley. Armed with an old broom, laundry detergent, a hose (and courage) I headed out to scrub away. It took some doing; it was somewhat nauseating.
I noticed a small hole in the corner of the wall. I reached in to discover a well-used heroin needle hidden inside. I ran that needle into my hand.
I really didn’t think much about it at the time.
About six months later I was in San Francisco General outpatient for AIDS testing. I had been terribly tired and had lost some weight. Perhaps I had been infected? It was funny but a part of all of this was having to sit in a circle with a dozen gay men being instructed about safe sex practices. (I remember bananas and condoms were used.)
It was 1987, and AIDS testing was still primitive; it took 6 weeks for the results.
That wait was a bit of a challenge. I cried out to the Lord many times. Since the symptoms got even worse, I started to think the worse. I was thinking, “was this considered martyrdom?” or “I can’t ask Lynn to marry me now.” (I had been thinking about this up to then.)
I was positive that I had AIDS.
About 20 years later I discovered I had contracted HCV, Hepatitis C. I had a good doctor who knew his stuff. Although my liver had been damaged by that point, he guided me through a maze of testing and found a new med that was supposed to have good results. It did, thank God. I had finally been cured.
Lynnie and I were married on January 7, 1989.
What can I say really? I know the Lord directly intervened. We returned to Alaska where I was asked to teach at the Alaska Bible Institute. I was able to draw on my many experiences with SOS in San Francisco to touch the hearts of young men and women going into ministry.
Lynnie and I went on to pastor a Church in 2000.
Only God can bring good out of something bad.
“OLordmy God, I cried to You for help, and You have healed me.”
Psalm 30:2
“Christ is the Good Physician. There is no disease He cannot heal; no sin He cannot remove; no trouble He cannot help. He is the Balm of Gilead, the Great Physician who has never yet failed to heal all the spiritual maladies of every soul that has come unto Him in faith and prayer.”
“Yet Jerusalem says, “The Lord has deserted us;the Lord has forgotten us.”
Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child?Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible,
I would not forget you!16 See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands.Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.”
Isaiah 49:14-16, NLT
Some of us need to be persuaded of God’s love. We are unconvinced. But Isaiah understands. We grasp the theology, but not the meaning. Our own native ideas keep us in disbelief. Perhaps the greatest liability we have as believers is this doubt that God really feels this way about us. But, He does.
Isaiah claims the impossible, yet grounds himself in what is real. The Father loves us and we’re His very own. Even if we don’t seem as holy as we ought to be. In His out reached hands, we discover scars. This is the price He has purchased us with. We once were blind, and very lost— but now we are His own children and can see.
God may love me. But does He like me?
We are given the impression that He more than ‘loves’ us; He ‘likes’ us. That dear ones, is not a point I’m prepared to support it with scripture, but that isn’t the truth, it doesn’t exist except in my own thinking. I know that He theologically loves me. But to be really honest I sometimes think that God is irritable with me, and He just gets tired of having me around.
But I also must believe God also likes me as well. Surely, there is such a fine line here, between ‘like’ and love. The more I walk with the Lord, and it’s been over 50 years now, the more I love/like Him. I have learned to like Him as much as I love Him. And if God doesn’t like me, I think it actually diminishes His love.
Isaiah speaks for the Lord using tender metaphors. Among the people some had the mindset that God had somehow forgotten them. They thought that they were ‘the lost ones.’
God then uses the analogy of a mother. A nurturing mother. This metaphor is strong and sure. No, God hasn’t forgotten His people. Look at His hands, your name is ‘tattooed’ on them. You’re His, forever. (I hope you like that truth.)
“In math, if you divide an infinite number by any number, no matter how large, you still have an infinite quotient. So Jesus’ love, being infinite, even though it is divided up for every person on earth, is still infinitely poured out on each one of us!”
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” —Unknown
“Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.“
Genesis 1:16
“We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.” –Annie Dillard
It struck me this morning that we live in a ‘coarse’ age. I meet so many people who don’t seem to enjoy life at all. They seem to view things without ‘seeing’ them. There is mystery all around, and yet we seem to lack the faculties to perceive it. We probably would rather play X-box than write a poem, paint a portrait, or gaze through a telescope.
The older I get, the more life astonishes me. There is so much mystery saturating my life: nature, the night sky, a tiny baby, and my hands– all just ‘skimming the surface.’ When I consider the multi-layered complexity of life, I tend to ‘short-out.’
God reveals Himself as, ‘the God of wonders.’ When I consider our phenomenal universe with more than a million billion galaxies, I start to lose it. Once I camped on a remote beach in Mexico. There wasn’t any electricity, so at night it really got dark. Lying on my back I saw the ‘Milky Way’ for perhaps the first time. It was magnificent! But suddenly I was afraid. I ran back to my tent terrified. I guess I got ‘overloaded’ by all that I saw. I was shaking by seeing the awesome revelation of a creative God.
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?”
Psalm 8:3-4, NKJV
For the freshly awakened believer, it is almost beyond belief to see so many people ‘sleepwalking’ through life. The somnambulistic masses move through life with nary an inkling of what it is all about. They are completely oblivious as it would seem; they are unable to see the wonders of creation, much less than the Creator. The enemy blinds so many to God’s presence and His redemption. The darkness is almost palpable.
“Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.”
Psalm 96:3
“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”— Harry Emerson Fosdick
“Youarethe Godwho does wonders; You have declared Your strength among the peoples.”
Psalm 77:14
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” Psalm 8:3-4, NKJV For the freshly awakened believer, it is almost beyond belief to see so many people ‘sleepwalking’ through life. The somnambulistic masses move through life with nary an inkling of what it is all about. They are completely oblivious as it would seem; they are unable to see the wonders of creation, much less than the Creator. The enemy blinds so many to God’s presence and His redemption. The darkness is almost palpable. “Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.” Psalm 96:3 “I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”— Harry Emerson Fosdick “Youarethe Godwho does wonders; You have declared Your strength among the peoples.” Psalm 77:14 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?”
Psalm 8:3-4, NKJV
For the freshly awakened believer, it is almost beyond belief to see so many people ‘sleepwalking’ through life. The somnambulistic masses move through life with nary an inkling of what it is all about. They are completely oblivious as it would seem; they are unable to see the wonders of creation, much less than the Creator. The enemy blinds so many to God’s presence and His redemption. The darkness is almost palpable.
“Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.”
Psalm 96:3
“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”— Harry Emerson Fosdick
“Youarethe Godwho does wonders; You have declared Your strength among the peoples.”
