I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake. (Psalm 23:1-3)
This is from one of the most quoted psalms ever written. But when you read this, do you wonder - why? Why does it say the Lord is leading me “for His name’s sake”?
Because we choose to follow, and by following Him by our own choice, we glorify Him! We use our freewill to choose to go where He leads us; over what may often appear to be a better path.
Continuing with the analogy of me being a sheep – I may see beautiful, untouched grass and wonder why the shepherd is taking me away from it. If I choose to go my own way and leave the shepherd to try this fresh treat, the wolf lurking there may have his own ‘fresh treat’ instead!
Our Shepherd knows where it is safe, and where the wolves are… By choosing to trust Him, we bring glory to Him - with the only thing that is really ours to give anyway.
Think about it - everything on earth belongs to the Shepherd except our freedom to choose - He has given us that, but does not control it. That is how much He loves us - He allows us to know the freedom and joy that comes with choosing whom to follow and love.
The way I see it, God only ever relinquished control over one thing – and that is a human's freewill. Every bad thing that has happened in history stems from our choices. Human choice gave Satan a foothold. Human choice caused the downfall of Eden, which in turn broke everything else. Every atrocity committed by man came back ultimately to a human and a bad choice!
So all of this - every bad thing we have chosen to do, was our choice using our freewill - the freewill God gave us so we could choose to worship Him "in Spirit and in Truth". Because that is the only way to have real worship, after all. Forced worship is no worship at all.
So when we use our freewill to choose to follow the Good Shepherd, He joyfully leads us into peace and rest. Choose to honor Him today!
#LoveMatters