Lie Down In Green Pastures

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

Psalm 23: 2

There are times when a Christian needs to lie still, like the earth under the spring rain, letting the lesson of experience and the memories of the Word of God sink down to the very roots of his life and fill the deep reservoirs of his soul.

Those are not always lost days when his hands are not busy, any more than rainy days in summer are lost because they keep the farmer indoors. The Great Shepherd makes his servant to lie down there.

There are times when men say they are too busy to stop; when they think they are doing God service by going on. Now and then God makes such a one to lie down. He has been driving through the pastures so fast that he has not known their greenness, nor apprehended their sweet savor; and God does not mean that he shall lose all that, and so He makes him lie down.

Many a man has had to thank God for some such enforced seasons of rest in which he first learned the sweetness of meditation on the Word, and of lying still in God’s hands and waiting God’s pleasure.

• from Springs in the Valley (1968) by Cowman Publications, Inc.

Willing To Be Led

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

Psalm 23.3

“He leadeth me.” What a wondrous link between those two personal pronouns! The chasm between the Shepherd in glory and his poor sheep might seem to be an infinite one; but it is bridged by this one sweet, tender word “leadeth.” As in the East the shepherd always precedes the flock, to discover the greenest patches of grass and the least stony path, so does Jesus ever keep in front of the soul that trusts and loves him. And it is our art to allow as small a space as possible to intervene between his footsteps and our own.

We must be willing to be led. There is so much natural impetuosity in us to shoot on in front and “prospect” for ourselves. Is that not so? And out of this restlessness there arises so much of the fret and chafe and disappointment of life. We think we can do so much better for ourselves than Christ can do for us. We doubt whether there is not something outside the limit of his will which it might be worth our while to snatch at. We are inclined to run before or linger behind, or go off to forage on the right and left. We take a long time ere we learn that the place of usefulness and blessedness is in following the lead of Jesus. We are much more liable to imitate some scheme which our judgement may have passed after a hurried hearing of its claims than to ask where Christ wants us to be and whither he is leading.

• F.B. Meyer, The Shepherd Psalm, as referenced in the KJV Devotional Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, 2011 Edition.