Being Led by the Shepherd

The Lord is my shepherd to feed, guide, and shield me,

I shall not want.

Your rod to protect and Your staff to guide, they comfort me.

Ever since graduation, I have convinced myself that because God's will is for my sanctification, and because that so often translates into suffering and dying to self, I must prepare myself for a career in something I don't like. It has been a battle to resist running to what is available and seen as least risky. And those options have a kind of holy sheen to them--after all, we want to be faithful servants, and being one does not always look romantic. But somewhere in the midst of this sorting through the will of God I have found myself believing that God intends to serve me a banquet of crumbs. He tells me it is good for me, so I subject myself to scooping up the dry morsels.

I believe I have missed something in this. Sometimes He tells us to drink a bitter cup, to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but there must be some good in the wanting and gifting He's placed in me. If the talents He's given to me are really from Him, then I must seek out where and how to use them. Some of the gifts He's given to me have been expressed here and there, but I'm coming under the impression that He wants me to be more generous with them. I have fearfully held them and kept them mostly to myself, self-protecting myself from any failures by only letting them air out when the stakes are low. But I have begun to sense Him prompting me out of this place that feels undangerous and a little less insane. This movement feels a lot more like faith than a naive God-is-my-genie kind of movement. It feels more like holding the hand of my Father so I can be who He has made me to be.

 I do not trust myself in this, and like everyone else, I do not know what I am doing. My story is not so different from every other Christian's story. I do not have anything new to say--I can only say everything that's been said before, because there is much that has been said that we need to hear again and again. Some is new to us. Some are made new by old words. I will gladly join the choir of the ages, singing the same old hymn being sung with millions of tongues in a million ways, centered around the One who we will never tire talking about. Those are the words worth speaking.