Category: Scripture reflections

The Shepherd knows what pastures are best for his sheep

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

From a devotional book first published in 1884.  (Don’t you love old books?)  Here is the entry for January the thirty-first.

Prov 3.6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.

Ps 23.2 He leads me.

In “pastures green”?  Not always; sometimes He
Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me
In weary ways, where heavy shadows be.

So, whether on the hill-tops high and fair
I dwell, or in the sunless valleys, where
The shadows lie, what matter?  He is there.   (Henry H. Barry)

The Shepherd knows what pastures are best for his sheep, and they must not question nor doubt, but trustingly follow Him.  Perhaps He sees that the best pastures for some of us are to be found in the midst of opposition or of earthly trials.  If He leads you there, you may be sure they are green for you, and you will grow and be made strong by feeding there.  Perhaps He sees that the best waters for you to walk beside will be raging waves of trouble and sorrow.  If this should be the case, He will make them still waters for you, and you must go and lie down beside them, and let them have all their blessed influences upon you.  (Hannah Whitehall Smith)

“But take comfort”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A bit of a balm for those who are fearful:

Jer 39.17: But I will deliver you on that day, says the Lord, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid.

What is the thing you most fear and most earnestly pray about, the thing that you most dread?  If you love your Lord and yet know your own weakness, it is that something may happen to sweep you off your feet, or that your strength may be drained and you may yield and fall, and fail Him at the end.  The lives of many are shadowed by this fear.

But take comfort.  The God who knew the heart of His servant Ebed-melech knows our heart too.  He knows who the men are (what the forces of trial are) of whom we are afraid.  And He assures us and reassures us.  The Bible is full of “Fear nots.”  You shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid.  (Amy Carmichael)

Doing for others and sitting down on the green grass

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From my friend, Amy Carmichael–before we get too busy for this day:

Mark 6.39  And He commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.

Psalm 23.2  He makes me lie down in green pastures.

Those who do most in the day and who always have time for one thing more are those who know what it is to sit down on the green grass.  It is not the bustling, chattery people who do most for others.  It is those who know most of the quietness.

Before our Lord Jesus could feed the people, He had to make them sit down.  Before He can feed us we too must sit down.  David sat before the Lord; he was quiet before his God.  Even if we have not a long time to spend in the morning with our God, much can be received in a very few minutes if only we are quiet.  Sometimes it takes a little while to gather our scattered thoughts and quiet our soul.  Even so, don’t hurry; make it sit down on the green grass.

Gather my thoughts, good Lord, they fitful roam,
Like children bent on foolish wandering,
Or vanity of fruitless wayfaring;
O call them home.

“Lord, show us the Father.”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

You can almost hear the sound of exasperation in Jesus’ reply to Philip’s request: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?  He who has seen me has seen the Father: how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (Jn 14.9)  This week long I have been remembering and pondering a conversation I had with a good priest-friend of mine.  He made the insightful comment that he considered one of Christ’s greatest sufferings to be that so, so many did not grasp the most important part of His mission–and that was: to reveal the Father’s love to us.  How frustrating for Jesus to have so very few whose hearts and eyes were open to perceive this desire of His Heart and to satisfy it.  Imagine for yourself what it is like to try to communicate your own love and appreciation of someone dear to your heart.  You want everyone to know the goodness of this person you know.  One of my own favorite things is to introduce my friends to each other–so that these wonderful people that I know may get to know each other.  And here is Jesus who wishes to open the depths of our souls to the Father of all goodness. . . and we so often say with Philip, “Where is He? Show Him to us.”

Come, Holy Spirit, open our hearts wide to the full revelation of the Father through Jesus.  Help us to satisfy this never ending desire of His to “show us the Father.”

All my longing is known to Thee

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Another little gem of a comment on Psalm 38:9  by Amy Carmichael:

Lord, all my longing is known to Thee, my sighing is not hidden from Thee.

“Only a simple word.  This afternoon, words would not come when I tried to pray, and this troubled me; and then it was as if He, Who is never far away, said, What does it matter about words, when all your desire is before Me? Perhaps you, too, find that words will not come when you wish they would.  So I pass on my comfort.

“In St. Augustine’s words: ‘To Him Who is everywhere, men come, not by travelling but by loving.’”

Look straight up and praise

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I’m still delving deep into Amy Carmichael’s commentaries on the psalms.  I can’t help but share the precious tidbits I keep finding.  Here are her comments on that transition we find in the psalms from weeping to praise, that encouragement to look straight up and praise God with a song (when we least feel like it . . .):

“I have been noticing how in the Psalms every experience of distress turns to a straight look-up, and praise.  I had not noticed till recently that the Psalm of the weaned child (Ps 131) ends like that: ‘O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and for evermore.’ And today I read Ps 69, and there again I found the look-up that ends in praise.  Kay translates v. 10, ‘I wept soul-tears’, and that is just what it is like at times, when all we have done to help another soul seems to end in failure.  Even so, ‘I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving’ (v. 30).

 “Surely this emphasis on praise in the Psalms is because to turn from discouraging things and look up with a song in one’s heart is the only sure way of continuance.  We sink down into what David calls mire, slime, deep waters, if we do not quickly look up, and turning our back on the discouraging, set our faces again toward the sunrising.

“Perhaps that is what v. 32 of that Psalm means, ‘You who seek God, let your hearts revive.’

“I found all this very reviving.  It led straight to ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength’ [Is 40.31], and ‘Let them that love Him be as the sun when he rises in his might’[Jgs 5.31].” (Edges, p.159)

Remembering

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From Benedict XVI’s reflection on Psalm 136:

[W]e can say: The liberation from Egypt, the time in the desert, the entrance into the Promised Land and then the other problems are very distant from us; they are not part of our history. But we must be attentive to the fundamental structure of this prayer [of this psalm]. The fundamental structure is that Israel remembers the Lord’s goodness. In its history, there are so many dark valleys, so many passages through difficulty and death, but Israel remembers that God is good, and they can overcome in the dark valley — in the valley of death — because they remember. Israel remembers the Lord’s goodness and His power; that His mercy endures forever.

And this is also important for us: remembering the Lord’s goodness. Remembering becomes the strength of hope. Remembering tells us: God is; God is good, and His mercy is eternal. And thus, remembering opens the road to the future — even in the darkness of a day, of a moment in time, it is the light and star that guides us. Let us, too, remember the good; let us remember God’s eternal, merciful love. Israel’s history is already part of our memory as well, of how God revealed Himself, of how He created for Himself a people to be His own. Then God became man, one of us: he lived with us, suffered with us, died for us. He remains with us in the Blessed Sacrament and in the Word. It is a history, a remembrance of God’s goodness that assures us of His goodness: His love is eternal.

You can read his entire meditation here.

“I will bless you, even if the car won’t start . . .”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A week ago I gave a talk at Witnesses to Hope, and part of what I spoke about was the importance of thanking the Lord in all circumstances.  This past weekend one of the women who had attended that night, passed on to me a prayer that she found in the September issue of The Word Among Us.  Part of it goes like this:

Father, I choose today to go through my day blessing you, whether my circumstances are comfortable to me or not.  I will bless you, even if the car won’t start or the kids’ commotion won’t stop.  I will bless you in rain and in drought, in hot or cold, in feast or famine.  I will bless you because you have rescued me from sin.  I lift up your holy name and exalt your goodness because you are holy and righteous.

I will bless you, Father, when gas prices rise, and when my income fails.  I will proclaim that you are good and you hold  all things in the palm of your hand.  When insects swarm, when crops fail, when stock markets falter, even when your favor seems to flee my life, still I will bless you.  You are mysterious in your ways, yet compassionate in your wisdom.  I will trust you, Lord, and bless you, God most high.

You can read (pray) the entire prayer here.

Building up a memory for the good

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As I have mentioned before, Pope Benedict is doing a marvelous series on the psalms during his Wednesday audiences.  Here is part of his address yesterday on Psalm 126:

Dear brothers and sisters, in our prayer we should look more often at how, in the events of our own lives, the Lord has protected, guided and helped us, and we should praise Him for all He has done and does for us. We should be more attentive to the good things the Lord gives to us. We are always attentive to problems and to difficulties, and we are almost unwilling to perceive that there are beautiful things that come from the Lord. This attention, which becomes gratitude, is very important for us; it creates in us a memory for the good and it helps us also in times of darkness. God accomplishes great things, and whoever experiences this — attentive to the Lord’s goodness with an attentiveness of heart — is filled with joy.

You can read the entire thing here.

“The brimming river of God’s love”

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A commentary by Amy Carmichael on the banner scripture for this blog:

Rom 5.5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This verse seems clearly to mean that love comes first into our hearts.  Then because love has come we hope, and that hope “never disappoints,” as Weymouth puts it.

Experience worketh hope, Romans 5.4 tells us.  And so it does.  But it also worketh fear.  If we have had long experience of the weakness of souls, and seen many a time what seemed a great blaze-up of blessing fizzle out, we do become fearful of hoping too much.

And yet the word stands.  Here it is Way’s paraphrase (vv.3-5): “I will go further, and say that we actually exult in such afflictions as ours, knowing as we do that affliction develops unflinching endurance; that endurance develops tested strength, and tested strength develops the habit of hope.  This hope is no delusive one, as is proved by the fact that the brimming river of God’s love has already overflowed into our hearts, on-drawn by His Holy Spirit, which He has given to us.”