“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
Psalm 23:6 (RSV)
The look on this little lamb’s face is worth a thousand words. He seems to be saying, where is everybody? Which way is home?
He doesn’t know that his shepherd is right behind him, running to catch him before he wanders deeper in the woods. He just hasn’t looked back yet.
I remember being lost in the woods once. My relatives had a cabin in the woods somewhere in Michigan, and our family went for a visit, when I was about four years old. Somehow I wandered away from the cabin and got lost in the woods. Some very kind people in a nearby cabin found me and took me in. They kept me safe until they could find my worried parents. (Needless to say, I’ve never been a fan of camping or sleeping out in the woods.)
We may not be lost in the physical woods, but we can feel the same isolation or loneliness, being in a metaphoric woods, far away from our familiar cabin.
It could be any situation that shakes our sense of well being or what was familiar. The woods we are wandering in could be an estranged relationship, or financial insecurity or a new health scare.
Paul wrote “The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
Paul was imprisoned when he wrote these words. He didn’t know if he would be freed or put to death. He said “the Lord is at hand,” and if He is at hand, it means He is nearby, and aware of our sense of isolation or anxiety.
Maybe He is right behind us, like the shepherd running after his sheep that wandered off. God knows how to best manifest His goodness and mercy in our lives, and it doesn’t depend on our emotions. We trust Him because He said so.
Some days God’s goodness and mercy is revealed through others, like the kind lady who took me into her cabin that day. Other times, His goodness may be disguised as a temporary disappointment. God wants what is best for us, and He may delay the answer to our prayer for a good reason, or He might have a better answer than the one we asked for. Whether we receive the answer as we wanted, or in a different form, God still shepherds us and gives us what we need.
When we feel alone or forgotten, we only need to look behind us, remembering this verse of scripture, and believe, as Paul said, that the Lord is at hand. David wrote that His goodness and mercy follows us always. We can trust that He is following behind us, and time will prove that the difficult trial really was for our good.
Goodness and mercy is more than a shift in our destiny, or the answers we want to our prayers, it’s a person. Jesus, is the good and merciful shepherd, who is following behind us all the days of our life.
Lord, help us to pause from worry and look back, by faith, knowing that you, Jesus, have always been running after us, as in this picture. Come, take control of our mind, body and spirit, as we cast our anxieties on you today. Thank you for your goodness and mercy which will follow us, all the days of our life. Amen