Circle which one describes your life now:
As an off-road experience
As a crossroads experience
As a newly paved road experience
No matter what your experiences in life, God is always ready and willing to restore of lives.Someone has well said…“God composts life’s sour fruit! He restores withered and worn-out human hearts with His out pouring Spirit!”
With a grateful heart you can sense David’s restoration has affected him in a powerful way - along with his outlook on life!
1. When We Fall, God Lifts Us To The Place Of Restoration.
“He restores my soul my soul”
Literally: “He brings my soul back”, which tells me that there is no place God can’t bring us to begin His restoring process on us!
There are 2 dangers sheep face:
A. Becoming Cast.
Psalm 42:11 “Why are you down cast, O my soul?” And why are you disquieted within me?”
A Shepherd would understand this phrase well. Cast down is an old English term referring to sheep that lay down and can’t get up. This is one of the saddest sights, when sheep have laid down in such a way that it has rolled over on its back and their feet are straight up in the air and they can’t get out of that position!
Sheep are built in such a way that the center of gravity won’t let them aright themselves at this point! Panic sets in of being eaten!
Then gases build up in their stomach and it gets very hard because of the pressure created. Then they get where they can’t breath. Blood stops circulating properly and the legs go numb. Within 2 hours if the shepherd doesn’t rescue them, they will die!
When the shepherd comes along – what He does not do is kick the sheep and say, “look at the mess your in.” He tenderly messages the stomach, then slowly rolls it over and prepares to lift it up, and then begins to massage its little leg to get the circulation going down to the legs.
That’s a tremendous picture of what our Shepherd is willing to do for every one of us! If you’ve had your soul cast down, been on your back spiritually, emotionally or financially, God is ready to massage you and lift you back up to the position of being restored.
God says, “I want to restore your confidence, courage and hope, even your joy!”
A soul can be cast down by:
• Guilt over sinful ways
• Grief over a loss
• Tragedy over a friendship
• Sickness in our body
In this condition you’re a prime candidate for – 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you,for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
In 1929 Georgia Tech played USC in the Rose Bowl. During the game a player recovered a fumble, but became confused and ran the wrong way. A teammate tackled him before he would have scored the wrong team! At half time all the players were in the locker room sitting and waiting for the response of the coach. The young player that ran the wrong way sat all by himself with a towel on his head and just cried!
The coach came into the locker room and says nothing of the stupid play. Then the coach stuns everyone when he says that all the same players are starting the second half! All the players leave accept the young man and says, “Coach, I am not going back out on the field ever! I’ve embarrassed the team, and I can’t face the crowd!”
Then the coach did the most amazing thing, he put his hand on the player’s shoulder and said, “Get up and go back on the field, the game is only half over.” What a coach! How many times does God gently tell us, “Life is only half over, get back out there, I’ll be with you!”
B. Becoming Lost.
When sheep are out grazing, they never look up; they are totally focused on the tender grass and will keep moving away until they become lost, quickly!
They don’t know how to get back to the fold. There is no I.Q. test on sheep – there’s nothing to test!
Every night as a Shepherd ends his day he does 2 things:
• He calls his sheep
• He counts his sheep.
If you are on your back in life, or you’ve lost your way in life, God will restore your life, there is still hope. His restoring is not like restoring a piece of antique furniture! God goes deep into our person to restore the deepest wounds in our lives!
2. When We Falter, God Leads us to The Path of Righteousness.
Let me share with you something interesting about sheep…Sheep can only see about 10 yards in front of them! They are worse then the man…Mr. Magoo
In Bible days, a shepherd was a master at reading paths in the wilderness. Predators made paths, robbers of sheep - all paths were not good paths to travel and only a shepherd with experience knew if the path they were following was a good one.
Many times we think we are on a good path in life, only to have God say to us, “That path will destroy your marriage, children, or your body!”
Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone, to his own way.”
Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
Do you know what I love about my Shepherd? And if your honest you’ll agree with me, God always bats 1000, never strikes out when it comes to my life! Never hits into a double play, never fouls out, and always hits a home run when it comes to guiding us!
Proverbs 12:28 “In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death.”
Spiritually, we all have bad eyesight! I don’t care how educated, book smart, rich, popular, or how experience you are, you and I can’t even see one minute’s worth in front of us! Have you ever thought to yourself, how can I face the future without fear?
Corey Ten Boon said…“Never be afraid to trust a future you don’t know to a God you do know.”
It was Christmas Eve 1946, King George the 6th, reined over Great Britain. They had been bombed; they were broke and barren of any hope of the future. That Christmas Eve night he got on the radio to make an address to his nation. These were that last known words he spoke to his nation before his death…
“I said to the man at the gate of the future, ‘Get me a light that I might walk safely into the unknown.’ He said to me, ‘go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God and it will be better than the light and safer than the unknown.’”
Folks, as long as sheep can see the shepherd and stays close to the shepherd, they don’t have to worry about the future!
Stanley Jones writes, “Many live in dread of what is coming. Why should we? The unknown puts adventure into life; it gives us something to sharpen our souls on. The unexpected around the corner gives a sense of anticipation and surprise. If we saw all the good things which are coming to us, we would sit down and degenerate. If we saw all the evil things, we would be paralyzed. How merciful God is to lift the curtain on today, then slowwwwly lift the curtain on tomorrow.”
Don’t you agree - it’s bad enough to know our past; it would be terrible to know the future!
Sheep don’t have to worry about poisonous grass, polluted water and prowling predators, because the shepherd will take care of leading them into future pastures! And God will do the same for each one of our lives if we will listen to Him and follow His path.
Today, God is speaking to us and saying, “Remember yesterday, I was trying to lead you but you were stubborn!” I desperately want to lead you today so your future will be so enjoyable!” God is saying to someone right now, “I can’t lead if you don’t receive my spiritual signals before you start your journey today!”
Three Practical Ways to Receive the Shepherd’s Spiritual Signals in Life:
A. Ask God To Give You Wisdom.
James 1:5 “If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of God, who gives liberally...”
I once read an article entitled “If you are 35, you have 500 Days to Live”, it said… “When you subtract the time spent sleeping, working, traveling, tending to personal matters, hygiene, odd chores, medical matters, eating, in the next 36 years you will have roughly the equivalent of only 500 days left to spend as you wish.”
No wonder Davis wrote, “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.”
B. Ask God To Guide Your Walk.
Isaiah 30:21 “Your ears shall hear a word come from behind you, saying, this is your way, walk in it”
C. Ask God To Guard Your Ways.
Psalm 139:23, 24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my anxieties. And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”
Do you know why God wants to restore and lift our lives, and why we ought to follow our Shepherd through life? Look at the last part of this verse…“for His name sake.” - So that our lives will bring glory to the name of our Shepherd…Jesus!
