Great Is Your Faithfulnessનમૂનો

Faithful to Order our Steps

I don't claim to be a gourmet chef but I do enjoy cooking for my family and entertaining friends in our home. Look most home cooks, I tend to get in a rut and cook many of the family's favorite dishes on rotation, but on occasion, I will spot a recipe that looks enticing in a magazine or online and decide to tackle it myself. The listed ingredients are secured and I go to task on the new recipe. If I'm not careful, I'll allow myself to become distracted or rushed and get ahead of the ordered steps, adding the eggs or spices in too early. Maybe I dump everything in, all at once, without recognizing, "these ingredients are dry and need to be mixed together first before adding them to the wet ingredients." When I do this, the recipe never turns out quite the way it was pictured in the promotion. Everyone graciously eats what is served, but it falls short of the four-star reviews I'm after.

Ordered steps are often required in life to produce the desired results. Whether it's something as minute as a brand-new recipe you're cooking, or something as grand as your life's path, typically a prescribed order, or process, must be implemented to fully realize the optimum outcome. Perhaps one of God's grandest attributes of faithfulness is His commitment to ordering our life's steps, leading us to still waters, green pastures, well-lit paths, and so much more.

It wasn't exactly a compliment when Jesus referred to humanity as sheep. Sheep are notoriously dumb animals who can get lost within the pasture they call home. They're easily distracted, impetuously stubborn, and driven by cravings. Shepherding sheep is among the most tedious of occupations as the shepherd must know what his sheep need at all times, and determine a plan to provide it for them in a timely manner, leading them safely before they can self-destruct.

Jesus is known as the Good Shepherd for all those same reasons. King David wrote often of the care and concern of the Good Shepherd throughout the Psalms. In Psalm 37, he spoke of the wickedness all about him, encouraging himself and the reader to trust in the Lord and keep going. One of my favorite translations of verse 3 is found in the Amplified version, where the commentator elaborated, "Trust [rely on and have confidence] in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and feed [securely] on His faithfulness." Feed on His faithfulness!

How can we feed on His faithfulness? Verses 4 and 5 continue, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and petitions of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him also and He will do it." And then down in verse 23, hear this: "The steps of a [good and righteous] man (or woman) are directed and established by the Lord, and He delights in his way [and blesses his path]." David confirmed from his own experience in verse 25, "I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous (those in right standing with God) abandoned or his descendants pleading for bread."

Dig a Little Deeper

Do things feel "out of order" in your life right now? Meditate on Psalm 37 today. Read it in multiple paraphrases or translations. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal where you missed His guidance and allow Him to redirect. Your life may not be as simple as a messed up recipe, but from His grand point-of-view, God can redirect your steps and get you on the right path. He is faithful to order our steps.