“He makes me to lie down in green pastures…” [Psalm 23:2]

Distractions bombard my mind. Negative thoughts catapult over the walls of my soul and find their way into the chambers of my heart. Off in many directions go my thoughts–here and there, unrestrained, running away from home ~ the altar of worship.

It’s cold out here. I feel lost. I’m beginning to forget what it means to worship my God? I am leaning into unbelief ~ certainly into distrust ~ while my soul feels it is breaking into many pieces? My world begins to spin out of control, far from making sense. A world I designed for myself, while mapping my own way.

What levels this imbalance? What soothes and thus relieves my anxieties, my frets, my fears? Nothing does like worshiping the Lord, my God… while lying down in His meadow of lush, nurturing green pastures.

But I want to sit up! I want to stand up! I want to walk, even run, my own way!! “All we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way.” [Isaiah 53:6] Good Shepherd, who knows my woolly ways, “makes me to lie down in green pastures.” He knows I’m hungry. He knows I need rest. He knows I am prone to wander beyond the fence line. My soul wrestles its own Gethsemane within this fold. I kick from within. His will? My will? His will? My will?

How does He ‘make’ me to lie down when He’s given me free will? E.v.e.r so cleverly: fragmentation. I’ve run hard after my own ways and lunged headlong into the proverbial wall.

“Lie down?” I argue. How could ‘lying down’ solve my problems?

Then His light breaks forth, and I see it. It’s not in the position of my body that brings balance to my soul. It’s the posture of my heart ~ lying before Him, worshiping Him, in total dependence ~ winning that wrestling match within my soul. Some of the fragments come together. Wholeness begins as I lie my soul down in His green pastures…this place called home.