His Encouragement: Psalm 37:3

His Encouragement: Psalm 37:3

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This post is part of the series His Encouragement

Other posts in this series:

  1. His Encouragement: Biblical Inspiration for your Thursday
  2. His Encouragement: Psalm 147:3
  3. His Encouragement: Psalm 37:3 (Current)

Welcome, welcome, dearest friends, to His Encouragement: Biblical Inspiration for Your Thursday. Every Thursday, a small group of bloggers will each bring you a new Bible verse and a little discussion of hope and encouragement. We welcome you to join the conversation by commenting with your daily verse as well.

We pray that these Thursday posts become a source of encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

Today’s Thursday Encouragement

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” — Psalm 37:3, ESV

Last week I ended with the first part of this verse: “Trust in the Lord, and do good…” so today I figured we can take a slightly deeper look at the verse in its entirety.

The first thing that popped out to me is the curious wording of the second part. “…dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” What does “befriend faithfulness mean”, I wondered. That is when I noticed the Bible I was using had a little footnote attached to the end, and the footnote read: “Or and feed on faithfulness, or and find safe pasture.”

The imagery that this phrasing brought to my mind was very reassuring. I was reminded of a video I saw not too long ago of shepherdesses in the desert of southern Israel who lead their sheep among the hills. At first glance, the hills appear to be barren; nothing but dirt and rocks; however, as you go closer you see tufts of green grasses poking up here and there.

Since there is not enough to eat in one place, each goat or sheep has to rely completely on their shepherdess’ knowledge of the landscape ahead. It is not a lush green meadow like we are used to seeing, but nestled among the dirt and rocks of those forlorn-looking hills is enough grass to nourish their little flocks… as long as the flocks keep trusting the shepherdesses and follow their leading. Nibble here, move along, nibble there, move along.

Notice that the beautiful promise in Psalm 37:3 is conditional? We too will “find safe pasture” and “feed on faithfulness” in the land we dwell in as long as we “trust in the Lord” and “do good”. We must let go of our need to control and rely completely on our Shepherd, the Lord, trusting that He will always care for us. We also must not neglect to obey His teachings about loving and caring for others, for doing good in the world around us. (See Micah 6:8; Galatians 6:9; and Philippians 2:13 for starters.)

We, like those little flocks, may not have an overflowing abundance of material wealth nor will we always avoid danger and trials, but we will have the most important thing of all: a Shepherd who protects us and loving guides us through the challenges to safe pasture.

Now it is your turn! What Bible verse is getting you through your day today?

 

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