and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights. (3:17–19)
In light of such a state of sufficiency, even amid conditions of total desolation, an experience of joy, rejoicing, and strength remained. Neither fear of death, nor disease, nor danger, nor hunger, nor pain, nor person, nor creature, nor circumstance, nor loss can interrupt or overwhelm the life lived in the empowering love of the Shepherd’s care (Rom. 8:35–39).
GETTING TO KNOW THE GOD JESUS KNEW
Psalm 23 and Habakkuk 3 lie before us as the result of reflection on the manner of being that fully establishes the ultimate goal of the divine conspiracy throughout all creation. Psalm 23, the God-breathed, with-God life, has already been initiated and is now being brought to pass in and through the lives and communities of his devoted students. As disciples of Jesus, following in his footsteps, listening to the Spirit’s ever present counsel, we are to facilitate and lead a humble, peaceful, wise, and loving festival of goodwill, the result of which will overwhelm every competing agenda, every fearful scheme, and every desperate plan founded on the shifting sands of human fear or pride. It is a revolution of loving-kindness.
History reveals that acts of rebellion and resistance to God and his ways, whether overt or covert, conscious or unconscious, individual or communal, are most often committed by those with ears deaf to the music and eyes blind to the beauty of the plentitude provided by the Good Shepherd, who is the Lord of all things, Yahweh, the great “I am,” who prepares a table of goodness that nourishes body and soul, family, tribe, city, and nation to the point of overflowing. It is from this position of lavish blessedness that God is set to deal with all creation.
Psalm 23 provides a step toward a primary change that must occur prior to any renovation of our thoughts and actions. We must come face-to-face with the king of the realm we seek to expand. The God that Jesus knew was perhaps very different from the God often described in our contemporary world. The God Jesus knew perfectly and testified to is a self-sustaining, all-encompassing being who is also immaterial, intelligent and free, personal and triune, perfectly good, wise and powerful, who created the universe and continues to sustain it as well as govern and direct it by his providence. The moral attributes of God as loving, beneficent, and generous flow out of the plentitude of his being. There is nothing to fear. We are in fact more than conquerors when we obediently follow in God’s good purposes and plan (Rom. 8:37).
SEEING KING JESUS’S ONGOING WORK
It is also important for us to recognize and celebrate the fact that Jesus has made wonderful and glorious progress in accomplishing his divine conspiracy and building his church throughout our world. There are more improvements to be made, but we can and should marvel at the amazing achievements Jesus accomplished in bringing life and light into our lives, families, cities, and nations. Pages and pages could be filled recounting the miraculous, supernatural realities that have taken place right before our eyes that remind us and testify to how steadily God is moving in and through our world to turn hearts and minds toward his unending and boundless majesty. Truly “the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3).
Just some of the deeply satisfying improvements can be witnessed in the progress the church has made, in general, in dealing with many of the paralyzing debates and conflicts we have engaged in over the past two centuries. Of particular note are the advances made with regard to racial reconciliation and gender equality, the reduction in denominational acrimony, increases in cross-confessional and cross-cultural respect, awareness, dialog, cooperation, and relief efforts, to name just a few. Controversies still rage in certain corners, but much advancement has been achieved, and we should relish these developments.
Even still, much crucial discernment is needed regarding the kind and type of work Jesus would have his gathered disciples be about. When disciples of Jesus become more clearly able to see that we are also participants, and not only passive recipients, of God’s empowering grace, what are we to do? What would God have us do? What is the big picture God is painting and how do we fit in? What is God’s overarching mission for his church in our world? These are big questions, and they carry even bigger opportunities as we realize their answers are of great significance not only for followers of Christ, but for every human being. This is due to the fact that each of these questions stems from one core question: What is the primary objective and purpose for human existence?
Humanity has achieved much good. We’ve split the atom, learned to fly, traveled in space, probed the corners of our planet, cured countless diseases, invented amazing technological wizardry that boggles the mind, and steadily progressed in our understanding of our universe and the basic components of our physical world. Although we acknowledge there is more to do in a multitude of areas, humanity has made astounding progress. God has been with us, despite ourselves at times; he has shown us favor and helped us to thrive in many ways, in many arenas, and through many means. A great number of these advancements are not strictly “Christian,” as we have come to understand that term. Electricity, for example, is not considered a “Christian” discovery. Nor should we expect it to be. Yet the world is a far better place because of it. God loves all people equally and can and does use all kinds of people, as he sees fit, for the good he desires to bestow on all of us. This is one of the most wondrous characteristics of God’s mercy and grace. Certainly every good and perfect gift is from God, and he has graced humanity with many gifts and continues to do so. At the same time much progress remains in manifesting his kingdom “come” in and to our world today. Darkness still opposes the light. Only the most ardent of atheists would disagree with such a statement.
Even so, since our civilizations began, humanity has struggled, and continues to struggle, with discerning what thriving consists of, how best to do it, and how it will be measured. Our history reveals all the many experiments we have conducted to best organize our families, communities, cities, and nations. Each has been built on a variety of combinations of philosophical, ideological, religious, political, moral, legal, commercial, economic, and relational foundations. This will not change. Neither will the key questions driving these endeavors through the millennia: Why are we here? What do we want? How shall we live? Who is my neighbor and what is my responsibility toward my neighbor?
We can become weary and frustrated that the solutions our society provides to these questions continue to elude us. To paraphrase U2’s Bono, humanity still hasn’t found what it’s looking for. Yet each succeeding generation has the responsibility of coming up with its own answers.
The many and varied secular gospels that seek to answer these questions fill our institutions of higher learning, our political discourse, and our airwaves simply because these issues concern the core needs of every human being. Consequently, the search for acceptable means of flourishing becomes a constant consideration for those who lead and direct our social institutions. Therefore Christians, in all the areas and disciplines that comprise our society, who are intimately acquainted with the Good Shepherd and his ways must be prepared to offer more than a memorized set of beliefs in reply. There must be a robust competency and willingness to examine and then demonstrate, model, and thus prove how and why Jesus’s answers to these questions are both good and best.
It is at the intersection of human need and human knowledge that the Christian worldview, if it is what it claims to be, must offer hope, guidance, correction, and truth. Thus, we will now springboard from the ideas and implications first introduced in The Divine Conspiracy into the larger systemic issues we must begin to face in our world today.
Leaders Who Follow the Shepherd