The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Ps 23:1
Hello friend and welcome back to the blog. Thank you to everyone that left a comment last week, shared this post or even just prayed over the blog. May God bless you and may he continue to use this space for His glory.
To get into today’s post, let me start by asking you a question: How close is your relationship with your Heavenly Father?
John 10:14 [ESV] states: ”I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me“
As a child raised in a Christian home, my idea of knowing the shepherd simply meant knowing who God is and memorizing a few of his attributes as well as scripture verses.
However, the more I draw closer to Him the more I realize just how naive that thought process actually is.
While knowing who God is starts with knowledge of His name and attributes, truly knowing God goes far beyond that.
If you’ve had a difficult or complicated relationship with your earthly father, it might be difficult to grasp the understanding of a loving relationship with a Heavenly Father.
I say this from personal experience. With all respect to my earthly father, for several years, our relationship was very complicated. And this was to the point where it affected my view about our Heavenly Father.
For years, I truly didn’t see God as a loving father who cared every bit for me. Instead, I saw Him as a majestic deity who loved and cared for me only when I pleased Him. I pictured he expected perfection from every bit of my life and would become so discouraged and disappointed with myself whenever I failed or fell short of the standards I held myself to. This, as you can imagine, created a legalistic lifestyle which I practiced for several years before really finding the truth about who God is. And then He started to change me.
I’m still a work in progress… Each day, I feel a little closer than the previous.
What are you experiencing in life right now?
There’s this picture in some of our minds that a loving God will just give me whatever I ask Him for. Or perhaps the question: if He’s loving, how could he let bad things happen to me?
Well, first of all, a good father doesn’t always give a child everything they request because he knows that somethings are just not good for you.
The truth is, when you truly get to know God, you start to realize that the things He allows into your life have a reason (this includes good and bad). You also begin to realize that all He requires from you, His sheep, is trust. Trust that he is in fact a good shepherd who will take great care of His sheep (Psalm 23:1).
Let’s pray…
Dear God, thank you for the reminder from John 10:14 of the fact that you know me and that as long as I’ve given my heart to you; I am also known. Please help me to remember this in times of trials or adversity and to trust you because I know you are a good shepherd. In Jesus Name. Amen.
References
The Bible
Image credit
Wix
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