A Good Shepherd
Psalms 78: 56-72
56 But they put God to the test and rebelled against the Most High;
they did not keep his statutes.
57 Like their ancestors, they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow.
58 They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.
59 When God heard them, he was furious; he rejected Israel completely.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent he had set up among humans.
61 He sent the ark of his might into captivity, his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
62 He gave his people over to the sword; he was furious with his inheritance.
63 Fire consumed their young men, and their young women had no wedding songs;
64 their priests were put to the sword, and their widows could not weep.
65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.
66 He beat back his enemies; he put them to everlasting shame.
67 Then he rejected the tents of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
68 but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever.
70 He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens;
71 from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel his inheritance.
72 And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.
God seems to have worked through human beings, by selecting righteous and sincere men in any circumstances. Here is David, the greatest king of the Israelites, who was chosen from God to lead His disloyal and faithless people, who forget the grace of God very quickly and rely on the idols that couldn't do anything for them.
David was a shepherd, as you know, who just took care of the sheep in the wild, but he must have done his best with his skillful hands and the integrity of heart. The last verse catches my eyes. 'David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them.' I can imagine that he treated the Israelites as a king in the same way he had cared for the sheep as a shepherd.
Whether he was a shepherd or a king, he did make use of his skills and with his heart of integrity(honesty), he governed his own people. The insight I get this verse is that I should do my best wherever or whatever I do in life. Doing my best does not mean that I do with my own trial to do something in vain, but it means that I do something with my integrity when I coundt the number of sheep and have the loving heart to them, as well as any responsibility of caring for them.
I pray that our future president may be like David, and God could pick one who shepherds with integrity of heart and skillful hands with many experiences of caring for others. I pray also for the Ukraine who are suffering from the war that was casued by Putin last week as well as the Myanmar people who have been opposing againt the army powered government. If the leaders were good shepherds, they couldn't have attacked their own people, so they must be bad and evil men, sheherds- disguised ones.
