The Lord Is My Shepherd

I have been having rough time of late, in case you hadn’t noticed.  It seems like once I get into that cycle of crisis and drama it just keeps escalating until it becomes impossible to step off.  Granted, my life often lends itself to crisis (or so it seems), but I need to remember that I cannot always control my circumstances.  The one thing I can control is my reaction to those circumstances,  which is where I’ve gone wrong of late.  I need to remember that I don’t need to buy into the drama and the fear, because I have been given a greater gift than that through the Grace of Christ.

Yesterday brought me two reminders of this:

The first came in the form of an email from a friend, which contained two daily devotionals.  The devotionals were written by Carolyn Larsen, and basically reminded me to put on the armor of God and to always be on guard for the schemes of the devil.  They also stated that the devil often wears us down as the sea does a rock, a little at a time.  That is so true, isn’t it?  I have not been walking in my faith as strongly as I need to be, and I haven’t been immersing myself in the Word on a daily basis to help guard against Satan.  By the time I was finished reading those two short devotionals I was crying; it was exactly the reminder I needed, and I thank God that the person who sent them allowed Him to use her for that purpose.

The second reminder was, quite frankly, humorous. Anyone who says that God doesn’t have a sense of humor needs to have the experience I had.  He took my own words and turned them on me.

When I am working with students, there are sometimes situations that arise in which a student will shut down and refuse to work through a problem.  When this happens, I sometimes remind them that they are young adults and that they need to be actively involved in solving the problem.  I then tell them that if they refuse to participate in the problem-solving process I will solve the problem for them, but they may not like how I solve the problem.

So yesterday afternoon the girls and I went to get in the car to run errands, and when I turned the key…dead battery.  One of the girls had run out to the car to get something the night before and had left the interior light on.  So there I was, my car in the garage, the battery dead, with a VERY bad attitude.  I know a few people these days, and I can name several who would gladly have run over and helped me out.  Did I get on the phone and call anyone?  Nope.  Pity party at Jenn’s house!  I gave up, came inside, and felt sorry for myself.  I told God that he was going to have to handle this one, because I was sick of handling things.  So He did.  The girls’ dad called to say he was in Wichita, and they informed him that my car was dead.  He offered to come get it started, which was a huge blow to my ego.  I definitely didn’t want that to happen, but he insisted he wanted to see the girls anyway.  No arguing with that.  THEN…my parents called.  They were in Wichita and wanted to come see us.  Now, I don’t know a lot about the father-daughter relationship from the father’s perspective, but I can tell you that my father does not like my girls’ dad.  Apparently you cannot destroy a girls’ heart and expect forgiveness from her father.  So here I was, with my ex-husband and my dad ready to fix my car.  Oh…the joy.  It all turned out fine, but it wasn’t how I had wanted the situation solved.  That’s what I get, isn’t it?  I can just see God up there saying…”are you sure you want me to fix it?  You might not like what I do?”

Now, I don’t think that God is in to punishment, and it’s hard to say for sure if this was really his purpose.  I am, after all, only human, and I doubt that I could really know His intentions.  At the same time…message received.  I needed that reminder.  It’s soothing to know that I my Shepherd is going to keep me on the path, and that if I start to wander He will correct me in one form or another.  We serve an amazing God, don’t we?

~ by Jenn on December 7, 2008.