Ezekiel 34: 11-12 "For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a sheperd looks after his scattered flock when he is withem, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the plces wehre they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.
Ezekiel 34:14-15 "I will tend them in a good pasture and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd teh flock with justice."
Ezekiel 34:29-31 "I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Sovereign Lord. You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord."
I feel that these verses resonate the heart of God. Chapter 34 of Ezekiel speaks of the failure of man and the redemption of God. This continual mantra is seen throughout the Bible and it is always a reminder in my life not to rest on my successes or failures, but to rest on the redeeming power of my Savior.
I pray that as I grow through this time of training, that Jesus would grant me His heart and His eyes to see this world. Surrounded by so much that is counterintuitive in this world, I find myself clinging on the meditations of Proverbs 4 in allowing God to direct my steps and to guard my heart completely.
I wonder about this world and about this life that God has given me. I sit here in a barracks in Ft. Benning, GA pondering the future not of only myself, but my peers, my sheep that God has entrusted, my parents, and so many....... I sit here with so many questions, so many thoughts, so much.....wondering....thinking....and I suppose there's a moment you have to give all that up and trust God...a moment where its just too much.
I'm just not there yet, I'm letting it weigh me down, letting it get to me and I just cling to it....its like that point of maturity where you're able to let go of that security blanket and realize you don't need it anymore. Or maybe its the time when you're riding the bike with the training wheels on it and finally your parents take them off.
You step on to the bike with butterflies crashing into your stomach lining and questions upon questions of what is going to happen... you visualize this thought of falling, scraping your knee..or even worse, not being able to break and getting racked by the handle bars....
But you hear a voice in the background....you turn around a second and see your father stare back at you with that stern confidence that comes from weathering so many storms. His determination becomes your determination, his resolve becomes imbedded into your DNA, and with that you look out and you go....
You go with the confidence of that Father, and that is my hope as I look at my Shepherd, as a scared sheep, that I would learn to run with the confidence of my father, that His resolve would become imbedded in this spiritual DNA of mine and manifest itself in a way that others see Christ in me!
God grant me the strength, the joy and the freedom, but most of all, help me to remember the grace by which I am saved....Thank you always!!!
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