Psalm 23:1-6
Finding the Still Waters

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;
    he leads me beside still waters;
    he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
    for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
    I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff --
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
    my whole life long.

New Revised Standard Version

What a work week I have had! I have been fussed at by my boss and chewed out by my clients, and I have done more than my share of fussing right back. I can recall six very stern, scolding emails I have sent, absolutely justified and well-deserved, and there are at least three others that I should have written and didn't have the time to write. It's been so bad that one of my managers, who has only worked for me for a year, told me he'd never seen this side of me before. I think many of these times I have used my anger in ways that are consistent with my faith -- but then again, I know sometimes I have sinned in my anger, and I'm not convinced that I'm not deceiving myself about those other times. I've been too upset, and it is too recent, for me to have a healthy perspective on all that happened.

Every day this week, I have left work with not just a deep fatigue, but feeling "parched." In the heat of all the pressures, tensions, priorities, and frustrations, my emotions have blistered, my mind has fried, and my soul has felt like the baked, cracked mud on a dry river bed. You can imagine how my prayers have been in this irritable mood. "God, turn down the heat! Slow things down so I can keep up. Convince those folks that they need to be more reasonable. Give me the right words to convince my boss that I'm right and he's wrong. And, God, just what is it with all those stupid people I have to deal with?" God answered those prayers with a void of silence that I needed as the reminder that one of us involved in those prayers is God -- and that one wasn't me!

A couple of times this week, though, I got my prayer time right. Too tired to fuss, too humbled to denigrate those others of God's creatures, and too weary to devise ways for God to fix my problems, I'd simply flop down in God's presence. Both those times, as I released my anger and frustration to God, God surrounded me with the psalmist's green pastures and still waters. There are times when the words we pray are important, then there are times like this week when words just interfere with the Presence. God restored the dry river bed of my soul, soothed my emotions, and calmed my mind. It is so much easier to follow God on the "right paths" after that kind of restoration!

I have a math problem, though. There were five work days this week -- I just counted them again to make sure. In my schedule, that's five morning devotion times I spent, plus two evenings of church activities with prayer times I experienced, and of course plenty of other chances for me to make myself available to God for healing.

"So, Jon, in a week like that, why did you open up to Me only twice?"