Green Pastures

The 23rd Psalm is familiar and comfortable.  It is comforting.  Jesus is our shepherd. (Okay, this part makes me a little uncomfortable because what I know about sheep is limited, but mostly I know that they are dumb.  I like that Jesus is the shepherd, but why do I have to be the sheep?)  Anyway.  It is comfortable because the chapter tells me that Jesus is actively caring for me.  He’s restoring me, leading me, guiding me, with me, preparing for me, anointing me. Wow. That’s a pretty amazing list.

When I think about or hear verse two, normally I think of a scene etched in my head.  Probably ten years ago, Karl and I were riding our four-wheelers up in the Sierra Madre Mountains above Encampment, Wyoming, my favorite place in the world. We were just above the Rudefeha Mine site.  It was August.  The days were warm, the high, alpine wildflowers were blooming, there were wild raspberries and strawberries to be found when you were lucky and looking carefully.  The sky was blue with puffy clouds floating above.  As we came to a small curve and then a shallow crossing where the Haggarty Creek runs over the road, a sheep herder was grazing his flock. For the most part, the group was bedded down in the shade for an afternoon nap. They were, in fact, not in want. They’d been led beside still-(ish) waters, and were lying in green pastures. Even the big scary Great Pyrenees sheep dogs were lying happily in the shade resting. They were being restored. The contentment was palpable.

We crossed the creek and left them behind, but the scene and the indelible definition of Psalms 23 remained and still remains with me.

Fast forward to yesterday.  First off, we awoke yesterday morning and were greeted by a deer lying peacefully, relaxed and completely happy in our back yard. Now, please understand that we’ve just sort of begun working on that backyard, and for the most part it is a flat section behind the house full of weeds that we mow in order to keep them in check and surrounded by scrubby/ weedy and overgrown trees.  It’s actually pretty ugly and it stresses me out as a result. Yesterday morning, it contained three ladders that Karl is using while he puts a roof on the shipping container that he’s turning into a shop and there were several pieces of plywood, an extension cord, and a swimsuit from Saturday drying on the clothesline.  Definitely ugly.  Not, in fact, even close to a green pasture.  I took pictures of the deer, though, and I cropped out the piece of plywood he was sitting beside, and we were thankful for the gift of seeing it.

Then we went to church.  Pastor John’s opening prayer included these words: “Bring us, Father God, into the pasture of Your Word so that we can know you deeper.”  Huh? I’ve thought about that prayer. So let me get this straight, God… I can be in Your green pastures even if I’m sitting on a rough and weedy, ugly place? Or I can be in Your green pasture sitting in church trying to understand how to transcend being a clay vessel and become a vessel of power for you?  Hmmm.  News to me.  I want it picturesque.  I want the wild raspberries and calmly bleating lambs.  I want You, my Shepherd, to provide perfect and beautiful for me so that I can be restored.  Oh, okay.  I see.  I really am very much a sheep.