CVC is partnering with our school body’s pastors — and we asked our pastors to give us some encouraging words and a meditation on a scripture that lined up with our theme: Living God’s Story. This week, we invited Visalia CRC pastor Joel Renkema.
⁠
“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”⁠
Psalm 23:1⁠
⁠
We don’t know when in his life King David wrote this Psalm. Yet it is striking that David is not requesting God be his shepherd. He is simply stating the fact that God is his shepherd. ⁠
⁠
When Saul tried to kill David, or when David sinned by coercing Bathsheba into his bed, or when he planned Uriah’s murder, or when his son Absalom attempted his coup, none of those things were because God wasn’t David’s shepherd. They all happened WHILE God was David’s shepherd. And even so, David professed “I shall not be in want.” How can this be?!⁠
⁠
Each one of us has burdens, sorrows, regrets, and sins. Sometimes, though, it takes an even greater burden, perhaps even a life-long burden, to teach us we can’t carry our burdens on our own. This is when we realize that all those myriad ‘wants’ we have are rather superfluous.⁠
⁠

Sometimes, though, it takes an even greater burden, perhaps even a life-long burden, to teach us we can’t carry our burdens on our own.

So, Christians should be prepared to lose. Loss is something we are all familiar with this last year of COVID. Vacation plans lost. Weddings postponed, shrunk. School sports delayed or cancelled. Missed friends. All these losses can make us feel like we are in ‘want.’ Or, they can show us this world can offer us everything we want, but not the one thing we need. Even having all those things just leaves us like deer panting for water. ⁠
⁠
Perhaps all that we have lost can remind us that we are a people who store up treasures in heaven. We are a people whose inheritance can never spoil or fade. Like the Psalmist, we can testify that our Good Shepherd is leading us to greener pastures. As we do so, the things of this world will grow strangely dim, because we aren’t in want of any of it.To truly enjoy and experience freedom, we must live in peace and love with one another.

Want to send your children to a school where the word of God is used as a reference to live life to the fullest? Choose CVC: cvc.org/apply