{"id":15286,"date":"2013-10-17T01:00:24","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T06:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=15286"},"modified":"2013-10-17T10:39:50","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T15:39:50","slug":"strength-shepherd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/17\/strength-shepherd\/","title":{"rendered":"My Strength, My Shepherd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SeekingHimLogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Praise be to the LORD, for He has heard my cry for mercy.<\/p>\n

The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped.<\/p>\n

My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to Him in song.<\/p>\n

The LORD is the strength of His people, a fortress of salvation for His anointed one.<\/p>\n

Save Your people and bless Your inheritance; be their Shepherd and carry them forever.<\/p>\n

Psalms 28:6-9<\/p>\n

In the stillness of the dark night when hurt and problems have plagued my heart and mind, I have cried out to my Lord for mercy and help.\u00a0 And He has been there to be my Strength and my Shield when I was completely broken and weak.\u00a0 The Lord shines when I am weak.\u00a0 “But he said to me, \u2018My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.\u2019\u00a0 Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ\u2019s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019s sustained me and strengthened me time and time again in the darkest hours. And then, dawn breaks.<\/p>\n

How wonderful it would be to sit at the foot of two overlapping, tall mountains and gaze upward as the sun casts its streaming light between the jagged mountain edges at sunrise on a cool, crisp fall morning.\u00a0 To read this Scripture passage in such a moment would probably make me want to break into singing praise music as I recall God\u2019s faithfulness and love toward me during the most difficult times in my life.\u00a0 I would desire for the sun to pause at the moment which is the most beautiful to me, but it must continue on its path, as we must also.\u00a0 There will be plenty of times of joy and laughter, but realistically, we know we will encounter more dark hours ahead.\u00a0 But the Lord will be there with us to help us endure heartaches and pain.\u00a0 He\u2019s our Strength and Fortress of salvation.\u00a0 He cares for Israel; He cares for us.<\/p>\n

David wrote Psalm 28 and penned, “Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever.”\u00a0 David knew the deep concern and watchfulness that was required of a shepherd for he had been one. He knew God as the greatest Shepherd ever.<\/p>\n

Soon, I\u2019m headed to the mountains like I described earlier. And as I sit there looking up at those majestic mountains before me, I will imagine David as a shepherd boy near the mountainside chasing after a wooly animal wandering away or being led astray by another.\u00a0 I\u2019ll imagine David, with staff in hand, calling for the creature getting away. Do you think the sheep would recognize his voice?\u00a0 Then, quickly, I\u2019ll think of how the great Shepherd has carried me<\/i> back to where He\u2019s desired me to be and away from my own course that could\u2019ve caused my heart to end up in a wrong place!\u00a0 I\u2019ve been like that wandering sheep where God has called me back to join His people “in the fold” of fellowship with others and in my rightful place.\u00a0 “When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4).<\/p>\n

My prayer of praise:\u00a0 I praise my God, my Shepherd \u2013 Who has met my cries with mercy, Who has met my weakness with strength, Who has helped me, and Whom I trust.\u00a0 I will continue to sing praises to Him.\u00a0 I know full well that He will carry me while in the valleys, while on the mountaintops, or in the journey I take toward either!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Praise be to the LORD, for He has heard my cry for mercy. The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to Him in song. The LORD is the strength of His people, a fortress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[55,3175,3173,4142,425,4139,4126,4140,3174,4141,4143],"class_list":["post-15286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-2-corinthians-129","tag-cheris-gaston","tag-daily-devotional","tag-david-the-psalmist","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-john-104","tag-psalm-28","tag-psalm-286-9","tag-seeking-him-devotional","tag-shepherd","tag-we-are-his-sheep","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-3Yy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15288,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15286\/revisions\/15288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}