Printed from: https://www.cmf.org.uk/doctors/devotion/?id=devotion&day=31&month=12
Jesus said `I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture'. Jn 10:9
In early June 1936 a five year old repeated to her mother the allotted memory verses for that day's Sunday School. The selected passage was Psalm 23. After the recital, her mother asked if she had understood what it meant to speak of the Lord as her Shepherd and had she ever asked him to become hers. That Easter had been spent in the Lake District where flocks of sheep and lambs had added interest to the holiday and although too young to understand parables, she could readily grasp the idea of a devoted shepherd seeking lost lambs and wanting to care for them, even at great personal risk. The realisation that the Lord Jesus had given his life to save her and now lived again to take care of her came home in a new way. She and her mother both went up and knelt at her bedside to commit her life into the Good Shepherd's safekeeping, wherever he might lead her. In years to come, he was to lead her to take care of other young children and her own experience was an assurance (sometimes to be shared with grieving parents) that there are none too young to come to Jesus. For her, the 23rd Psalm has never become hackneyed and it has seemed that the path of life pursued since that memorable Sunday has led her steadily through each verse in turn.
There have been many times of undoubted leading (often seen even more clearly in retrospect) yet times of hesitancy and doubt, too. There have been valleys, the darkest one being found in Africa when living at Cottage 23, Kitante Valley: imagine the wry surprise to find that `Kitante' meant the place for slaughtering the cattle! Even though it felt like a verse 4 experience, it was an assurance to realise that verse 5 would follow - and so it did. Times and events have only served to enhance the psalm's meaning. Theory is now backed by practical experience, leading to increasing thankfulness for the never failing goodness and mercy of God, to be relied upon for the rest of the days to come.
The Lord is, indeed, her Shepherd. Is he yours? Then, come follow.
Further reading: Jos 21:43-45. Jn 4:39-42.
JG
