Day Ten

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.

Reflective Thought

One of the first things we observed about David was that he wasn’t a young man writing these words. Certainly, he’d enjoyed many green pastures. But he’d also experienced the painful attacks of both wolves and fellow sheep, willfully wandered from the Shepherd’s sight, murdered a fellow sheep, and endured multiple “darkest valleys.” Yet when he penned this final verse, he sees only the constant outpouring of God’s goodness and love through it all. How is this possible?

Being older, David had the gift of perspective. Though he wrote this psalm of unwavering confidence in God, he also wrote most of the psalms that express great turmoil and frustration with God, often accusing God of deliberately afflicting and ignoring him. What David learned, and we must learn, is how as finite, flawed human beings, we can’t always understand his good and perfect ways. Suffering and fear make it nearly impossible to assume he knows exactly what he’s doing and is trustworthy. Romans 8:28 means that nothing irredeemable can ever happen in the life of a child of God. Nothing.

Fortunately, we aren’t left to learn on our own. The next line points us to the fellowship of the flock. The shepherd has many sheep he cares for. The sheep must learn to trust the shepherd’s love for them personally, as well as for the other sheep. And though the flock is full of fragile, flawed, and sometimes frenetic sheep, there’s both courage and safety in numbers. The biggest losses of sheep are those who wandered or stubbornly refused to heed the shepherd’s ways. God has placed us in his flock, learning together to enjoy and experience his eternal goodness and love until at last he leads us safely home.

Questions to Ponder
Have I experienced God’s goodness and love?

Am I a wandering or a content sheep?

What’s step can I take today?

Prayer
Good Shepherd, help me see your goodness and love in all things. Help me love my fellow sheep—even when it’s difficult—as you have loved me.