Psalm 23 - He makes me lie down in green pastures (4)

Your job is to abide in my pasture
Eating sweet grass and drinking pure water,
And sharing both with others—
That is a lamb’s business.                                            - Jessica Coupe



Rest in the Lord

Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. - Psalm 62:5

In this clause and the next we see that the Christian life has two components; the still, and the active. This one concerns itself with the former, which is in itself telling. We tend to think that first we do, and then we rest. But this is not the pattern laid out in Genesis. It was evening, then it was morning. So too the order here starts with rest and ends with activity. God works in us in our rest, and it is from that place of contemplating him that all of our activity should flow.



Meditate on Scripture

I will meditate on Your precepts And regard Your ways.
I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word.   - Psalm 119:15-16

Spurgeon takes these green pastures as direct reference to the Scriptures; "always fresh, always rich, and never exhausted. Sweet and full are the doctrines of the gospel; fit food for the soul, as tender grass is natural nutrient for sheep." Praise God that we are afforded such an abundance of spiritual food in the bible; not only good for the soul, but sharpening to the mind and delightful to the heart.

Rarely do we go a day without eating food, and if ever we do we feel the lack of it in our bodies. But do we notice the effect a day without time spent meditating on Gods revealed truths to us has on our souls? O, to have a conscience sharp enough to discern this! May we cherish this spiritual nourishment more than we cherish our daily physical bread.



Depend on God

What a humility we are afforded! Before we do anything - before we do even the Lord's work - we are to rest.  To live like this requires a total dependence on our Shepherd; it must not be our goal to maximise our productivity (which is idolatry) but to trust how God has apportioned our lot.

Yes, labour and work and hardship are integral to the Christian walk. But these flow out from a soul quieted by the grasping of the Lord's sufficiency and supremacy. Let us then pray for the courage to 'lie down' in a world that never stops, even when it costs us.

Thou hast created us for Thyself,
and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee            - Augustine