May 8

"The Lord is my Shepherd."—Psalms 23:1.

THE Lord is my Shepherd.

Shepherd in the morning hours, leading me forth to the duties and temptations and difficulties of the day, and Himself going before me. As I gird myself for the activities and the thousand perils of my life, I would be sure that He is with me. I dare not journey out to them alone. For apart from Him I can do nothing.

Shepherd in the hot noontide too, when the sun beats fiercely down, conducting me then to green pastures and along the banks of the waters of quietness. As I ply my daily task with busy feet, I would often come aside to be with Him, to ponder His Word, to listen to the restoring whisper of His Spirit. It is the secret of abiding and prevailing peace.

And Shepherd when the night falls, and it is growing dark. You know—do you not?—Sir Noel Paton's picture of Lux in Tenebris, the girl who walks through the Valley of the Shadow with her hand clasped in Christ's hand. Trust is conquering terror on her face, and she grows confident that no enemy will vanquish her. So may it be with me, what time I enter the ravine and breast the chilling floods.

The King of Love my Shepherd is. Can I say it: this "my," this pronoun of possession—"My Shepherd! quaerens me sedisti lassus"? If I can, humbly and heartily, then assuredly in life and death and eternity I shall not want. For I am persuaded that nothing shall separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. His shepherdhood is no transient endowment and no generous impulse and no passing mood; it is from everlasting to everlasting.