And then it was Friday again <3
For Lent, I am revisiting the 40 Day Prayers through Psalms by Angela Thomas-Pharr.
I went through this lovely journey of meditation the first part of the year and they touched me deeply.
I posted several of my own reflections on my personal FaceBook page and so today I am sharing the one for the section I read for this morning.
Original posting was January 12…I hope it blesses you today <3
Oh what a sweet discovery we find every day in God’s Word to us <3
Although I have read through the Psalms many times, today’s assignment has fallen in such a way that there is a precious and new light shining on our much-loved and quoted Psalm 23…
this Psalm is probably the most memorized one.
Our go-to in tough times…
The LORD is my shepherd.
I have need for no thing because He is the One who watches over me.
He leads me to quiet places and strengthens me in my weariness.
He guards and protects me and sets up a banquet table for me even in the midst of enemy fire.
Most assuredly, His goodness and His mercy will follow me…even as He leads me…all the days of my life.
How we love those words of promise and hope in our darkest times.
But today I see more clearly why I can trust Him to do this with a deep understanding of my own fears and tremblings, my doubting and uncertainty…because today I read Psalm 22 first.
Psalm 22 was written prophetically by King David about the coming Messiah.
Words inspired by God to voice the suffering that He would go through centuries before it would ever play out.
Words that express the feelings of abandonment our Savior would experience as God turned His Face away from His Son as all sin was laid on His beaten frame.
To read the outpouring of His cries for God to remember Him…
to be reminded of the punishment He took for us and then to see those last phrases of praises in the final verses of Psalm 22.
And THEN to say…
this LORD…
He is MY shepherd.
Where He leads me…He has already gone.
He has been there, done that and come back to lead us through it.
All the roads of suffering we take, He has already conquered for us.
He knows the way mankind walks.
And He follows behind us as we go…
ahead of us, behind us, with us, in our midst. Emmanuel …
God with skin on.
He is faithful <3