What a blessing it is to be a child of God—to be lovingly guided, gently corrected, and faithfully restored when we lose our way. We are never beyond His reach, never too far gone for His grace to find us. In every season, but perhaps most tenderly in spring, we are reminded of God’s guidance and restoration. As the natural world awakens around us, it quietly reflects His care: bringing life from dormancy, drawing us back to Himself, and assuring us that we are never a lost cause in His hands.
God’s Guidance and Restoration in the Spring Season
At this time of year, it is easy to see God’s love and care reflected in the awakening spring world around us.
The fields around our home are filled with freshly born lambs. They frisk about, leaping and headbutting each other with such carefree abandon. Their mothers watching and calling when they stray to far. A guiding motherly voice that her lamb recognises. Even though that mama sheep watches over her lamb, it does not mean that she always makes sterling decisions in watching her own ways.
A Straying Sheep: When we Lose Our Way
Just last week I was driving home and noticed a ewe stuck in a barbed wire fence. She had scrambled over a drystone wall in an effort to get to the green grass in a small adjacent field only to become entangled in the barbed wire just on the other side of the wall. I don’t know how long she had been there, but she was well and truly stuck.
Hind legs scrabbling to get a grip on the now collapsing dry stone wall. Her middle caught securely between two strings of barbed wire, fleece caught up, ensuring that she was not going anywhere. Her head and front legs on the other side trying to pull herself through.
She was certainly in a tricky situation and all because she was focused on what she wanted rather than on what she had in the rolling fields behind her.
Fortunately, the field in question happened to be right opposite the farmers house, so I pulled in and informed the farmer’s wife of the ewe’s predicament. She was soon rescued although it could have been easy trying to disentangle the fat, struggling ewe!
Chasing What Lies Beyond the Fence
There have been many times when I have been like that ewe. focused on what is ahead of me. Worrying that I need to find a way to provide for my own needs or perhaps convinced that I should be in an alternate field to the one I am in. I listen to voices other than that of the good shepherd, only to find myself stuck.
The Good Shepherd: God’s Gentle Rescue and Restoration
We have all been there. It is usually about that time that we start looking for the shepherd to come and rescue us from trappings of our own making…and he does. His concern is for our well being. He wants us to be safe, provided for and content. He does not wish for us to become entrapped and struggling unable to get free.
I can picture the farmer of that struggling ewe coming out and seeing her in that predicament. “Not again! What a silly creature”, he would have muttered as he rolled up his sleeves and set the struggling animal free.
Is he angry? Disappointed? Fed up?
Does he turn his back on the silly creature and say, well she will just have to find her own way out, serves her right?
Of course not!
Not Abandoned, But Pursued in Love
He recognises her vulnerability and her ignorance. He knows that his ways and thoughts are so much higher than her own simple frailties.
He does not hold a grudge against the ewe. He simply comes to her rescue, concerned that she is well and unharmed. Perhaps he hopes that that she will not undertake such a venture again, but if she does, he will once again roll up his sleeves and release her from her prison. He is a good farmer, he cares for his sheep and will do what needs to be done to ensure that they are well.
Guarding Our Hearts: Choosing Whose Voice We Follow
It is the same for us dear friends. In today’s modern world where there are competing voices and messages, especially with the advent of social media, it is easy to consume information and messaging that is wrong for us.
Psalm 1: A Life Rooted in God’s Guidance and Restoration
Blessed is the one who does not walk in the step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers
Psalm 1:1-3
What the Righteous Do Not Do
In today’s verse, the Psalmist explain why a righteous person (one who is in a right relationship with God and has a heart that responds to him and his word), is blessed, first negatively and then positively.
In verse 1 he declares that the righteous are blessed because of what they do not do.
The do not live in way that results from following the counsel and advice of the wicked.
Who are the wicked?
Anyone who does not align themselves with people who rejects or is scornful of God’s ways. People who are willing to do anything to advance themselves or find enjoyment at the expense of others. Those who say, “look after yourself” or, “it’s just business”. People who live contrary to God’s ways.
It is easy to seek counsel from these people, they are closer than you think. You potentially spend hours scrolling through their social media accounts where they are counseling you in sharp bite-size form on what you should be aspiring to or how you should be living.
Be cautious about what you consume.
Delighting Daily in God’s Word
The verbs in verses 2 and 3 we see how we are affected positively should we take this very defininate stance of NOT walking, standing or sitting in the ways of the wicked, sinners and mockers. We see that nothing about the life of the righteous withers and that all who see this person’s life behold his/her ‘fresh leaves’ and observe the abundance of his/her life.
The thought is not of prospering physically in the sense of becoming rich, but of achieving God’s ends, of doing well what she sets her hand to so that God causes it to prosper for the advantage of all. It is of having a fulfilled life, a worthwhile life, contributing to the good of mankind. She is like a fruitful tree. She prospers in fruitfulness.
Note the change in tenses between verse 1 and verse 2.
In verse 1 the verbs are ‘definite’. The righteous [wo]man has taken up a definite attitude towards these things. [S]he is set in her ways.
In verse 2 the verbs are ‘indefinite’, indicating continuous action. [S]he continuously delights in, and ponders on, Gods Word.
Isn’t that just such a wonderful encouragement?
With the memory of our recent Easter celebrations and of the Lord’s immense sacrifice firmly in our minds, think of how you can move forward with purpose.
When we chose not to ‘walk in the counsel of the wicked’, we are making a deliberate choice to do or not do something. It is choosing to have an attitude that determines the direction we take, and then to follow it through continually.
Growing Like A Tree: The Slow Work of Spiritual Fruitfulness
This is not an easy choice, I know. It will take time and practice. Afterall, a tree that ‘bears fruit in season’ does not produce instantaneous growth and fruit. In spring we watch it flower and bud, then it takes all summer for the fruit to develop and grow before we finally enjoy the picking and nourishing.
It is the same with the word of God, it does not immediately bring us to maturity and fruitfulness. It takes time. It is a process.
Don’t be discouraged. We need to be faithful in the everyday. In the resisting. In the delighting in God’s Word, before we finally start to see the fruit and experience the flourishing and prospering.
A Gentle Invitation to Return to the Shepherd
Perhaps the time is now to re-evaluate how life is going and if there is something that needs to change.
Do you need to confess that you have strayed, got caught up in a fence and needing the intervention of the good shepherd?
Do you need to say sorry for trying to be fiercely independent and following your own path?
Accept the Lord’s help. His loving kindness. His provision.
Put your trust in him and ask him to plant you by streams of water.
Delight in his Word daily and watch how God establishes fruit in your life and how he will cause your life to flourish in ways you may never have dreamed of.
