Sharing a gleaning with you from this week <3
A couple of things before I share a thought for today.
First of all, in my post on Monday, if you were doing the math it may have seemed confusing. I mentioned having penned my Mission Statement in 2006 (which is correct) and then it said as I read it 8 years later…which would have been 2014…it was still true.
That portion and the Mission Statement were written when I started the Journey Onward Blog that many years ago. So to clarify…in 2026, which is 20 years after writing the Statement and 12 years after making it a page on my blog site, it is still all true for me.
Secondly (is that a word?), on Day 3 of a church wide fasting and prayer initiative, I have been convicted (as I was from last week’s sermon) to review and consider how far I may have fallen from my “first love” in this Journey with Christ.
The thing that keeps resurfacing as I pray and seek my inner self and such is that I have fallen away from deeply studying and sharing God’s word.
If I have drifted in any way, it would be in reading and studying God’s words, following phrases that jump out at me and exploring deeper meaning in my quiet times.
I think back to how I would spend an hour or more looking up passages related to the passage I was reading, checking for meaning of words in a Concordance and finding commentaries of scholars to see if I was off track or on to something for my morning devotions years ago.
Teaching adult Sunday school for a couple of decades was a strong motivator for this as were the back to back Bible studies our church offered in those days. Somewhere along the way, without the accountability of having to come up with lessons each week and conflicts in schedules that have preempted a regular class attendance, I have stopped doing this thing that was part of my “first love” of His Word.
This morning, my devotion talked about how at the end of Judges, God’s people had drifted very far from reading and listening and talking about God’s word. And it was a humongous mess of humanity that led to God calling the prophet Samuel to bring them back.
I realized that it is not just the study, meditation, digging in and following rabbit trails that was part of my “first love”. It was also proclaiming it to others that kept my heart on fire.
So today I want to share (proclaim) what God showed me this week in the gift of an hour spent meditating on a phrase found in the 23rd Psalm. In a journaling class, we went to the sanctuary at church with our Bibles, pens, journals and nothing but quiet time to focus on a small passage of Scripture.
The assignment was to read Psalm 23 and then meditate on one small word or phrase that jumped out at us.
For me it was in the opening verses.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing….
I lack nothing is what caught my attention.
For a long while I just repeated that phrase over and over.
Eventually I had to grab my pen as I thought about what it meant to me. The photo above is what I ended up journaling, but I want to write it out in simple form for you…
Because You are my Shepherd, I lack nothing.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am free.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am content.
I am free from regret.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am whole and complete.
I’m free from longing.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am enough and have enough.
I am free from striving.
Because You are my Shepherd, I have all I need.
I am free from bitterness.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am finished.
I am free from fixing things.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am satisfied.
I am free from trying harder.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am secure.
I am free from comparison.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am made perfect.
I am free from measuring up.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am sated.
I am free from envy.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am safe.
I am free from perfectionism.
Because You are my Shepherd, I’m without need.
I am free from condemnation.
Because You are my Shepherd, I am full.
I am free from fear and doubt.
Because You are my Shepherd, I lack nothing
I am free from failure.
I am free from criticism and over-thinking.
I am free and I lack nothing.
I have had multiple opportunities this week to turn back to that phrase to remind me that I lack nothing. It has been a rich experience to return to the application of God’s Word gleaned from a time of study and mediation.
I hope you will look at the photo above one more time.
Find the word “perfectionism” and notice that it is kind of blotched and messy.
The reason is, I actually wrote the word doubt twice.
When I realized it, I was bothered by the repetition. I didn’t know what to do. And then as I continued to meditate on it, I decided to replace it with freedom from perfectionism….written perfectly imperfectly in my journal.
The Lord is my Shepherd….I lack nothing <3