My assignment

Maybe I've been too sedentary lately, or maybe I appear to not have enough to do, but anyway, God gave me homework. I can't imagine that He'd be trying to teach me something. Me? Heh...

So Laney memorized Psalm 23 last week for school. It's been ringing in my head, and God told me to translate it into a modern day version for myself. Fine. (Zane's new response to anything he's not happy about.) Here we go.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Well, since sheep are the dumbest animals alive, it's no surprise to me that God calls me a sheep several times in the Bible. I am incredibly dumb. I loved going through a phase of reading Francine Rivers' Biblical fiction books. I loved "Amos" because of the detail she went into describing exactly what a shepherd does. So poignant that it literally made me cry several times. A shepherd guides, protects, disciplines, punishes and cares amazingly well for his flock. The thing I loved the most was when Amos had to break a sheep's leg because he was a leader, and the sheep kept leading the whole flock into dangerous territory. So he broke it's leg, but carried it around his neck until the leg healed. Whew. How many times have I had my leg broken? And how many more times will he have to break it again?

The foremost thing a shepherd does, though, is take care of and be responsible for a flock. That's what God does for me. Okay, if I'll let him. Sheep have to allow themselves to be cared for. They can't keep running away-either from foolishness or rebellion.

And since I'm being cared for, He's going to care for me. The God that created the Universe. And as we are all realizing more and more, the way we care for ourselves financially is being shaken all around us. This economy is crappy and scary. Even if it doesn't affect you directly, it's affecting those around you, and it will get to you one way or the other.

You don't have to imagine for long what it would feel like if your spouse lost their job. If you really had no way to support yourself. Then, could you believe that you wouldn't want for anything? I'm not sure I could. What would I want for anyway? Money to get back to living the way I was "accustomed" to. I'm going to have a lot to answer for there anyway. What's it like to hope you have food to eat that day? Or that you have a place to get out of the cold? We so very literally have no idea what it's like not to want for anything. We only think we want for stuff. I think if we trust Him for what we need, He will provide some wants in with those needs. I mean He pretty much says He will. But I'm careful about having the gall to ask for the wants when so many need the needs. Or something like that.

So,

The Lord is trying to lead, guide and protect me, if I'm not too dumb to let him. I need to trust that He can and will actually take care of me, physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally.

Well, that went splashingly well, seeing as how it's time to cook dinner and I got one whole verse done. No wonder He wanted me to do this. I had a WHOLE bunch to learn from one measly verse. Guess I'll work on this later.

Love, the dumbest sheep