As I begin I am thinking this post will consist of a few random thoughts and hopefully come together by the end with some continuity.

Starting with an excerpt from my journal. Don’t think those words didn’t hit me square when they came from the end of my pen.
So now I have to ask myself am I driven or do I follow well He Who is here to lead me? Do I race around like a woman with her hair on fire? Not all the time. :)

JESUS does not drive His flock, He leads them. So if I am driven — who’s doing the driving? And how quick can we put a stop to this?!

Another excerpt: A timely Sabbath from affluence and technology making room for a tranquil sanctuary for our souls. What brought that on you might ask. Kay Swatkowski. Page 120 of her book a Grand Mother’s Prayers.  She wrote in part: “I am tired of the rush. I am tired of the noise. I am tired of the endless commotion and the unending demands heaped on us by affluence and technology.  . . .
What I can do is create a tranquil sanctuary in my own home.”
And so I prayed for a timely Sabbath, a tranquil sanctuary for my GRANDS and their parents. And then it happened again — that pen of mine! Could it be I should practice what I pray?

And another: Busyness. Pervasive and widely accepted she said.  (Kay Swatkowski)
And I wondered: Have we been deceived into being proud of our busyness? I wonder if we wear it as a badge of honor evidencing how important and vital we are? My journal did some meddling today. But I’m glad.

And so all this began when I wrote, I am here, ABBA, 10:11, late huh? But, ABBA, instead of me deciding how long I have to ‘spare’ to be here – You keep me here or send me forth as You desire. I want to be here. I want to hear what You have to say to me today. 

I think I will try it again tomorrow. Might spare y’all the details though. :)

And a verse that sums it up for me. 

Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)

¹⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

Until Next Time ~ ~ ~Kathie

What would it be to be sheep with no shepherd?

¹⁶ Then he said, “I saw all Isra’el scattered over the hills like sheep without a shepherd; . . . [source]

Today, I gathered with a few friends and we took a closer look at Psalm 23. David penned: The LORD is my shepherd. We noted he said MY shepherd. David the shepherd had a Shepherd. [source]

David must have had an unmistakable understanding of what it meant to be a sheep and a shepherd. All he had to do was observe his very own sheep to identify with them. Their propensity to wander; their timidity of quick-moving water; their desperate need for a safe pasture to feed on; their many enemies, those without and those seeking to get inside their heads. And then to equate his own love and tender care of his sheep as their shepherd to The Shepherd Who loved and cared for him. The LORD is MY Shepherd he said. He understood! (I highly recommend the book A Shepherd’s Look at Psalm 23 by W. Phillip Keller.)

In Keller’s book he parallels sheep and people sheep in fears, head strong temperaments, mortal enemies, parasites, wanderlust, feeding requirements; the whole gamut of what it means to be sheep and Shepherd.

As you now read Psalm 23 read it with two avenues in mine. The Sheep who follow The Shepherd and the soul who doesn’t.
ABBA, show each of us clearly The Shepherd Who loves the sheep and we the sheep who desperately need the Shepherd. HOLY SPIRIT, seriously for each one that reads Psalm 23, I ask You to vividly reveal The Shepherd Who loves the sheep and the ways of we the sheep that make it so necessary for us to have The Shepherd, shepherd us. Amen and amen. 

Psalm 23 (CJB)

 See you Next Time ~ ~ ~ The LORD willing and the Church don’t rise, Kathie 

Below are two links to the podcasts we watched today. Each is nearly 30 minutes.

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2