there go the ships

One aspect of God’s character that has been delighting me recently has been the Lord’s providence, the way that He graciously orders all things for His glory and the good of His people. This is so easy to take in a purely abstract, academic way: how wonderful His hand in the grand turns of history!

To be sure, on this scale God’s providence is a comfort to His people. Every rise and fall of kings and nations, emperors and empires, comes as He allows. In a time of global instability, changes of leadership in influential countries, the rapid development of paradigm shifting technologies, you name it, it is good to know and trust in the God who directs all things according to His good purposes.

But there is also an intimacy to God’s providence. A personal directing of our steps through every up and down. The God who provides for all our needs as those more valuable than the flowers or birds of Jesus’ comforting words in Matthew 6. The care of the one who walks with us in the joys of life and its all too frequent grief. It is a great comfort to know that the Sovereign Lord who directs all of history in His providence is the same Good Shepherd of Psalm 23 who draws near.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
³     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.
⁵ You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    for ever.” (Psalm 23, ESV) 

This Psalm speaks of the faithful love of the Lord who, when I was a teenager, drew near tangibly as I prepared to return to the UK after a childhood spent overseas, leaving the place I had called ‘home’ and my closest friends. I vividly remember the comfort I found in the words of another Psalm:

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalm 139:9-10, NIV)

God’s providence means His goodness and mercy, His faithful love is an ever-present reality wherever we go.

It also speaks of the gentle care of the Shepherd when I sat alone with my newborn daughter in a hospital room, uncertain of what the future held, scared, listening to the words of a City Alight song,

“I have a friend, a faithful friend
And Jesus is His name
He will not leave, He stands by me
My Shepherd, He remains” (He Calls Me Friend, City Alight)

God’s providence means He is both our closest friend and our protector who walks with us through the darkest of times in our life.

And Psalm 23 speaks of the God who has directed every move of my life, even when I have not been aware of it. As I reflect on the major choices of my life it is easy feel a sense of having made poor decisions based on faulty wisdom, humanly speaking, and severely mixed motives. Knowing what I know now, would I have chosen those subjects at school, applied to those universities, moved to that city? 

Yet even those choices, made with my imperfect knowledge of the future, have been used by God to shape me and sanctify me. Through joys and trials, relationships formed and friendships left behind, He has made me more like Jesus. And in His mercy, what has He kept me from? What trials and successes has He kept from my path which would have surely shipwrecked my faith?

I don’t know. Even hindsight is not truly 20/20. But this I know:

The Lord is my Shepherd.

Far better than any detached sentiment that ‘everything happens for a reason’ we can know and take comfort in our Shepherd who is there at every turn. There through every dark moment and season of life. There leading into every joy, refreshment, and spiritual blessing that we might experience. And finally, keeping us for that day when we will sit at His banqueting table and see Him face to face.