Blessings of Summer

There is something about walking beside a gentle babbling brook or stream; it seems wash the soul, cool the mind and bathe the heart.

There are several interpretations of the well known verse in psalm 23:2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul:

For example, the message puts it this way, “You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from.True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.” And the Living Bible, “He lets me rest in the meadow grass and leads me beside the quiet streams. He gives me new strength. He helps me do what honours him the most.”

Wendell Berry an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer writes. “When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

I suppose that for people of faith or as the psalmist implies, sheep. We need to be led by the Shepherd Lord. Sheep are not good swimmers, and it would be easy for sheep to be carried away with the current in a tumultuous river. So the LORD brings us to drink from rivers that will satisfy our thirst and that will not carry us off into danger. How still are the waters in the place where you rest.

Lord, you are our Shepherd;

you give us all we need,

you make us to rest in green pastures,

you lead us beside still waters,

you restore our soul,

you guide us in paths of righteousness.

Even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death

you will be with us to comfort us:

let your merciful goodness

and your unfailing love

follow us all the days of our life,

until we live in your presence for ever. Amen.