Come Heal With Me; Week 3

He makes me to lie down in green pastures.

Notes from the book, God's Psychiatry: The books tells me that a shepherd will wake his sheep at 4 in the morning and walk them until about 10, when he forces them to lie down.

He forces them...

As they walk, sheep eat. By 10, they are full of undigested grass; they are hot and tired. If they drink water--even though they may want to keep going toward the water--they will become sick.

The shepherd knows this.

My notes: Remember the Sabbath, the Lord said, and keep it holy. But there's even more to this.

1) The sabbath was made holy by God (Ex. 20:11)

2) Keeping the Sabbath shows we are set apart, sanctified (Ex 31:13).

3) "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's Holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the Land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.

"The mouth of the Lord has spoken" (Isaiah 58: 13-14).

4) The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).

I think it is vitally important now more than ever that I keep the Sabbath day set apart. I work, I stay busy, I don't think. That's the plan, isn't it, when one is grieving? Just. Stay. Busy. In time, you'll forget the immenseness of the pain. Isn't that the way of it?

But, if I'm reading God correctly on this, I need this time to rest. To ponder the things of God. To read. To nap. (Mother always napped on the Sabbath!) To worship, most of all.

And to grieve the lost of my beloved mother...and of my doting daddy four years ago.

Mother wrote this remarkable sentence at the end of the chapter: To a person not content, their pasture can never be green. Only with God in their heart can they ever be content.

My additional thoughts: How can I be content if I don't rest? If I don't remember? How can God heal me, if I don't allow myself to grieve? It's like not allowing a wound to bleed...without the bleeding, the impurities cannot flow out. Keep the impurities in, and just watch what happens.

My notes to you: If you are in a season of grief right now (and even if you are not), take at least one day a week to rest in the Lord. Be still and know that I am God," the Sons of Korah wrote in Psalm 46:10). Do you know what "be still" means in Hebrew?

It means...be still.

Stop.

Cease from your labor.

Rest.

A verse from Isaiah that shook me to my core last year (when I read it for the 100th time) is this:

“This is the resting place, let the weary rest”;
and, “This is the place of repose”—
but they would not listen.

But they would not listen... Will you make the Shepherd force you to lie down? Or will you lie down because you trust his leading? Think of the Sabbath as 10 in the morning.

Stop.

Rest.

Listen.

You just may hear the whispers of God as He breathes healing words over your soul.