Following the Good Shepherd

Today, I feel led to share the words from my devotion out of my women's Bible. They apply to me today along with a few others in my life that God has placed on my heart. You know who you are. But I know I am not alone so for those out there who are in similar boats, my prayer is that these words give you the hope, direction and light for the future that your heart so desperately seeks.

The LORD says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you." --Psalm 32:8

Repeat these familiar words over to yourselves afresh: "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want."
     Who is it that is your shepherd?
     The Lord! Oh, my friends, what a wonderful announcement!  The Lord God of Heaven and earth, the Almighty Creator of all things, He who holds the universe in His hand as though it were a very little thing, He is your Shepherd, and has charged Himself with the care and keeping of you, as a shepherd is charged with the care and keeping of his sheep.
     If your hearts will only take in this thought, I can promise you that your religion will from henceforth be fullof the profoundest comfort, and all your old uncomfortable religion will drop off forever, as the mist disappears in the blaze of the summer sun...
     You need not be afraid to follow Him whithersoever He leads, for He always leads His sheep into green pastures and beside still waters.  No matter though you may seem to yourself to be in the very midst of a desert, with nothing green about you inwardly or outwardly and you may think you will have to make a long journey before you can get into any green pastures, the good Shepherd will turn the very place where you are into green pastures; for He has power to make the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose; and He has promised that "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree"; and "in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert."
     Or perhaps you may say, "My life is all a tempest of sorrow or of temptation, and it will be a long while before I can walk beside any still waters."  But has not your Shepherd before this said to the raging seas, "Peace! be still. And there was a great calm"?  And can He not do it again?
--Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911)
From The God of All Comfort