Surely your goodness and love will remain with me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of ElO.R.D. forever.
Psalm 23:6
With Jesus my shepherd, I’m home
By the time David was finally crowned king of Israel at the age of 30, he had spent nearly half his life on the run from the jealous King Saul, who saw him as a rival to be eliminated. At one point, David begged the king to abandon this futile pursuit, saying, “Why is my master pursuing his servant? What have I done, and of what crime am I guilty?” (1 Samuel 26:18) Although the king relented that day, it would still take some time for David to settle down.
How tiring it must have been to be tormented like this continuously for so many years! You probably don’t have a mortal enemy like young David. But you may have felt chased in a more metaphorical way – constantly pursued by memories of past mistakes, words or actions that, when you think about them years later, make you blush or lament inwardly. Wounded by a guilty conscience, we may even begin to doubt whether God will forgive us. David had that experience too, after making some terrible sinful choices later in life. He wrote in Psalm 51: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”
In the closing verses of perhaps David’s most famous psalm, he writes about a very different kind of pursuit: “Surely your goodness and love will pursue me (literally, pursue me) all the days of my life. David learned that no matter how great our sin, the Lord’s love for us is even greater. Jesus, our Good Shepherd, pursues his wandering sheep and gently brings us to himself. During our lives on earth, The Lord invites us to seek refuge in His house of worship; and when we leave this earth one day, He will welcome us into His heavenly home, where “the Lamb will be their shepherd at the throne… and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:17).
Prayer: (CW, 552:6)
And so on for days
Your goodness never fails me;
Good Shepherd, can I sing your praises?
Forever inside your home! Amen.
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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used with permission from Zondervan. All rights reserved world wide.
