Wow….it has been awhile since I have been in blogger-ville.\u00a0 No worries…I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth.\u00a0 Still here!\u00a0 It has been a crazy month or so with work, normal-everyday life and some trips out-of-town for us.<\/p>\n
I am picking back up with the phrases from the 23rd Psalm.\u00a0 We are looking at “Even Though I Walk Through the Valley…”\u00a0 You may be wondering what a phrase like this has to do with sheep but there is a very interesting connection.\u00a0 As we have said that the whole Psalm tracks the entire year-long\u00a0season of care between sheep and shepherd.\u00a0 When we come to this phrase we are looking at the halfway point in the year.\u00a0 One could imagine that the previous phrases were made by the sheep to other less fortunate sheep in the pen next door but with this phrase we make a dramatic turn.\u00a0 Spring has sprung and the efficient, good\u00a0Shepherd leads his sheep out to the high country to the summer ranges.\u00a0Their summer and fall\u00a0will be spent in close companionship and solitary care of the good shepherd.\u00a0 The personal pronouns\u00a0I<\/em> and You<\/em> enter the conversation.\u00a0 It becomes a most intimate discourse of deep affection.<\/p>\n The terrain\u00a0that would be crossed would be wild mountains, rushing rivers, alpine meadows, and high rangelands.\u00a0 When Samuel\u00a0came to anoint David as the next King of Israel David was not home but off climbing the summer ranges leading his sheep.\u00a0 He knew from first hand experience about all the difficulties and dangers, as well as the delights, of the treks into the high country.\u00a0 The good shepherd would not take his flock where he had never been but would have gone ahead to look over the country with care (Oh, the sweet care that our Heavenly Father, the good shepherd,\u00a0takes with us as well).\u00a0 All the dangers of rampaging rivers in flood, avalanches, rock slides, poisonous plants, the ravages of predators that raid the flock, or the awesome storms of sleet and hail\u00a0and snow were familiar to him.\u00a0 He had handled his sheep and managed them with care under all these adverse conditions.\u00a0 Nothing took him by surprise.\u00a0 He was fully prepared to safeguard his flock and tend them with skill under every circumstance.\u00a0<\/p>\n Just as I was typing that last sentence and reflecting on how good our heavenly\u00a0Father takes care of us, I suddenly had my stomach “drop out on the floor” so to speak.\u00a0 I remembered that last night on the way home from the office I realized that I needed gas bad!\u00a0 I was on a “wing and a prayer” so to speak.\u00a0 I had already passed all the gas stations and was just a few miles from home and so I prayed all the way home setting in my mind that I would go first thing this morning to get gas.\u00a0 Well, I forgot to get gas and came straight on to the office.\u00a0 Out of the clear blue I remember that I did not stop on the way in this morning so I really am on fumes now!\u00a0 Thankfully, I believe it was the Lord that reminded me and isn’t that just awesome that He takes care of us even in our ignorance!\u00a0 Lord, we really are like sheep and we need You to be our good Shepherd!<\/p>\n I’ll finish up this portion of the phrase next week!\u00a0 So stay tuned!<\/p>\n Dana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wow….it has been awhile since I have been in blogger-ville.\u00a0 No worries…I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth.\u00a0 Still here!\u00a0 It has been a crazy month or so with work, normal-everyday life and some trips out-of-town for us. I am picking back up with the phrases from the 23rd Psalm.\u00a0 We are looking at “Even Though I Walk Through the Valley…”\u00a0 You may be wondering what a phrase like this has to do with sheep but there is a very interesting connection.\u00a0 As we have said that the whole Psalm tracks the entire year-long\u00a0season of care between sheep and shepherd.\u00a0 When we come to this phrase we are looking at the halfway point in the year.\u00a0 One could imagine that the previous phrases were made by the sheep to other less fortunate sheep in the pen next door but with this phrase we make a dramatic turn.\u00a0 Spring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,10,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}