23rd. Psalm

Tonight I received an email from a dear friend. He has been my friend since before any of my current troubles started. In the email he expressed his concern for me and his desire that I might start enjoying life again. Hearing from him encouraged me. But, it made me start to think about enjoying life again and what that will look like. It also brought back to mind some of the things that I’ve been through and why they happened like they did. I have had a few months to work through some of this now and I think I can see it more objectively finally. Even though I still have moments of sadness, grief and despair, sometimes, when I can muster my courage I am beginning to realize it was for my own good that this has happened .

I am healing now and I think I’m starting to come back to my senses. I am beginning to see that what I had with my old life was a fake, a lie, it was an opioid. I was just going through the motions of life. Not living it. It was comfortable but I wasn’t living my best life in God’s will. The comforts of my middle class life had made me complacent. It was easy to just go through the motions. All of this is starting to make sense. Now, I have to look for His guidance to do his will whatever it might be for me. 

I pray he will forge me into a tool that he can use. I pray that I’m up to the task whatever it might be that he asks of me. My life is no longer my own but his that lives in me. I have lost most of what the world values but it was worthless in comparison to what he has given me. I praise YHVH for my sufferings.  Proverbs says “For whom the LORD loves he corrects; even as a father the son [in whom] he delights”. The psalmist, in that often quoted twenty third psalm says ”thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”. The staff is a weapon to protect me from my enemies. The shepherd used it to defend the sheep and the rod is a rod of correction to herd the sheep where they need to go. The rod is used to protect me from myself and to make me obedient to the shepherds will. The shepherd has the sheep’s best interest at heart always. I needed that correction and He was faithful to give it to me.

Yeshua said in Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  27 And whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.

If you prefer wife or home and comfort over YHVH then you aren’t worthy of him. If you are not willing to be chastened by Him then you are not one of his sheep. In the beginning I said that I didn’t know what enjoying my new life would look like and I don’t. But, I know what it looks like from where I stand today. It looks like jumping off a high cliff and trusting that God will catch you and not let yo fall to your death. It looks incredibly dangerous. It looks like faith. I am on a high place without a net except for YHVH. I am afraid but I have to let go and jump. 

  I would give it all up again to have His love and have him pleased with me. That is my leap of faith. I don’t know what the future holds for me. Tomorrow I will get up and have my breakfast, get dressed and try to figure out what to do next. Whatever happens I trust Him that it will all be ok because his rod and his staff they comfort me.