In the journey to new green pastures and still waters

Catching myself on guard

Life is a journey, sometimes perilous and sometimes tranquil, but what is a given is that there is no steady state. The comfortable can so quickly turn and change is constantly pressing against the familiar and the mundane either to carry you along with your ability to adapt or leave you behind having been overtaken by circumstances.

For all the successes and adversity, I have experienced in my life, I cannot say I have found a formula that works best for each situation, much as I am not a tyro in the vicissitudes of life, I have to catch myself from the despair that threatens to upset me, or throw myself from the ease that allows me to settle without challenge or assertion into lassitude.

Embracing and enduring change

Yet, it is not lassitude in the very sense of the word, it is just that for the constancy of life day to day and for larger intervals of time from which certain milestones are measured, you need to be ready for change, know where you are in the change cycle and endure the process with dignity and fortitude to when things do bring a new relief.

I am reminded and I caught myself again that I should not despair, for have been through tough patches before and this too shall pass. For in Psalm 23, the reason why I have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death as one of the sheep of the Lord that is my shepherd is that we have exhausted the freshness of the green pastures we grazed earlier in the Psalm and need to find other cool still waters.

Eventually, new pastures and water must be found

The green pastures and still waters we need for sustenance so we can thrive and live in abundance are never in the same place nor are adjacent to each other, there are journeys and wanderings in treacherous landscapes where beast and predator might lie in wait of which I should not bother myself too much for the good shepherd is there to protect and lead, knowing the watering and feeding places in life as we roam as nomads in the changes and pursuits of life.

It is from this realisation just as a sense of foreboding tries to cloud my vision and lay grip on my hope that I begin to calm myself down and reflect on the goodness that has blessed my existence, favour and grace abound. The love of God consumes to show that I should neither care for nor fear for anything. It would come good and get better.

I comfort myself that before long even as He knows that I thirst and hunger, we would not tarry, the abundance the sheep needs to thrive again is not that far off, just stay the course trusting and following the shepherd.

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 We are guarded by greater than you know

Take me to see what you were shown,
Tell me of the journey to that place,
For out of a dark hole that opened like a mouth,
He was pulled back out by the underarms,
In the uncovering of an act so unnatural,
Ere Abraham found the ram in the thicket,
Abraham was old and will not bury Isaac,
The hole that opened is closed from all sight,
The prayers of the congregations were strong,
For they prevailed upon the unholy sacrifice,
Averting the abomination of patriarchs,
Who are given to the rituals of the cursed.

That to which he was a witness in a dream,
Was made manifest as light shone on his deeds,
In it, he will not prosper or even survive,
The tree is one generation to raise new seed,
Come away from the place he was urged,
His shoulders rapped to bring him round,
As he woke his eyes were filled with tears,
Marvelling at the machinations of forebears,
We will not strive over things that do not last,
Not at this time or in a distant time to come.

He that keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps,
It is by him that we are lifted from the pyre,
Even by the son of man who became the fourth,
After the heat is seven times strengthened,
By hand and foot and terror in their faces,
Their ashes not found dispersed in the wind,
What shall become the story told of them?
The past that attempts to consume the future,
Itself shall not be remembered or spoken,
Their hands were red and so involved,
The blood of the innocent now for justice calls.