Great Plains Daily Devotional for 3/10/2021

Ezekiel 34:11-16

For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.

While I was not thinking about this scripture as a devotional for this week when I read it the other day as part of my reading the Bible in a year plan….the image that kept coming back to me was the fertile land.  The fertile land I pictured was the northern part of Israel where many of us were amazed at how much agriculture was a part of Israel.  Too often we see the desolate images of the wilderness and desert.  But there is more to the Holy Land than our pre-conceived notions and that was a learning experience on our trip that happened just weeks before everything shut down because of the Pandemic. 

I digress from the scriptures and here we have an image of the shepherd who continues to care for his flock.  Ezekiel gives us another image of the good shepherd and reminds us that God has put in place someone who will care for us, someone who will search for us, someone who can rescue us.  While Ezekiel goes on to name David as that shepherd, we know that David is just the beginning and the good shepherd we see in our lives today is Jesus.

So as we continue this pandemic journey let’s keep our eyes open for opportunities to be amazed by how God can work in the world.  Maybe it can be a reminder to care for yourself, maybe to reach out to a colleague and share words of encouragement, maybe, just maybe it can be a time of deepening prayer.  My hope for you is that in some way God will reveal Godself in a deep meaningful way during this Lenten season.
 

Prayer for Reflection

Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22