Safe Pasture

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:3,4).

I took today’s photo [To see photo, click here] about a mile from our house on an afternoon walk. It’s a peaceful pasture with beautiful white fencing and adequate green grass for the horses to graze. They appear quite content and well cared for.

Early this morning I emailed brief words of encouragement to a few friends who had written about some prayer needs. A pastor friend facing a housing situation since he and his family resigned the church they’d served for many years. Another pastor friend is seeking opportunities to extend his ministry outreach. A truck driver from Canada then called for prayer who has critical decisions to make regarding expensive repairs on his truck. As I shared I was able to use today’s verse as a basis of Biblical encouragement and thus I will do so today for all our readers.

I particularly focus on the words “safe pasture.” Likely our most familiar Biblical use of the word pasture is from the 23rd Psalm where David proclaims, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”

Pasture is land with vegetation cover used for grazing of livestock as part of a farm or ranch. We don’t have as much land used for pasture around here as I was accustomed to in southern Missouri or Brooksyne from Oklahoma, since most of the ground in this area is tilled and planted in crops. This brings a recollection of my very colorful Uncle Gentry, a farmer and banker in tiny Harwood Missouri, who referred to golf as “cow pasture pool” (which by the way, fellow Missourian Mark Twain called golf “a good walk spoiled”).

As we walk or drive through the country we enjoy seeing livestock grazing in pasture land and today’s photo is the quintessential view. In today’s verse the Psalmist David, as in Psalm 23, also uses an agricultural illustration to connect to his readers.

“Trust in the Lord and do good.” He begins with this familiar exhortation which is a common theme through the Scriptures and is reflected in the lyrics of the classic hymn, “Trust and obey”. This is at the very heart of what God calls each of us to do in our earthly journey.

“Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.” Surely David is foundationally speaking from a spiritual perspective. Safe pasture connotes security, abundance, and faithfulness. A footnote in the NASV indicates that David is giving counsel to his readers to, “feed securely or feed on His faithfulness.” The Amplified Bible directs the reader to, “feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed.”

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” We can admire a person from a distance for his or her beauty, talent, skills or accomplishments. But to delight in a person holds deeper meaning since it suggests strong emotional involvement, not a distant admiration.

To delight ourselves in the Lord is to desire and enjoy His nearness and the truth and righteousness of His Word. As we develop and nurture this kind of relationship with God we surrender our desires to Him so that they are in accordance to His will. The desires that flow from our heart will be greatly influenced or originate from His abiding presence in our hearts.

The same deep satisfaction that David referred to 3,000 years ago may also be ours today as we regularly delight ourselves in the Lord. It is in this place of safe pasture that the desires of our heart will be shaped by our loving Lord as we feed on His abundance and live by His principles.

Be encouraged today,

Daily prayer: Father, we place our complete trust in You, for You are a faithful, trustworthy, and loving God. As we feed on Your faithfulness and live by Your righteousness revealed to us through the Scriptures we find ourselves delighting in Your presence. We also delight in You when we sing praises, when we give ourselves in service to others, and most especially when we commune with You in prayer. May the desires of our heart bring delight to Yours as we conform ourselves to Your will and rid ourselves of that which lures us from the safe pasture You have abundantly supplied for those who believe. Amen.

An alert reader pointed out that the Corner Acre Mums we mentioned in yesterday’s message is really open “dawn to dusk” rather than “dusk to dawn” as we had mistakenly posted! (Brooksyne’s Note: I’m the guilty party since I often get the words backwards for the properly designated time. Our neighbors’ business, if it were open from “dusk to dawn” would thrive if they sold moon flowers instead of mums, since moon flowers are most beautiful in the dark.