It Starts Small

At my home in Del Norte, Colorado, we had water rights. Every spring as the creek swelled up we were on a list of people who had rights to the water. Every 12 days or so, “we got to “turn on” the water for 24 hours. It was a lot of work to prepare for the water, and then a lot of work to maintain the ditches while watering. After a period of time, as the earth woke up from winter, the fields would turn lush and green.

They were not perfect hay fields. Because of neglect, the rabbit brush had moved in and taken over most of the property. Our land had been previously owned by sheep herders. They used the fields to grow hay. I believe it was brome with a mix of alfalfa and timothy. Early spring the fields were littered with rocky mountain iris and in late summer sun flowers. While they were not perfect pastures, they were pretty, lush and green.

Green Pastures.

That pasture in the internal sense denotes that which sustains man’s spiritual life, is also evident from other passages in the God’s Word.

⁸ This is what the Lord says:

I will answer you in a time of favor,
and I will help you in the day of salvation.
I will keep you, and I will appoint you
to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land,
to make them possess the desolate inheritances,
⁹ saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
and to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They will feed along the pathways,
and their pastures will be on all the barren heights.

Isaiah 49:8-9

When we feed upon the Word of God, we are being instructed in truth. When Jesus leads us, he uses the Word of God to feed us in the way of being instructed and taught in truth.

 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” This is the Lord’s declaration.

Jeremiah 23:1

All the splendor has vanished
from Daughter Zion.
Her leaders are like stags
that find no pasture;
they stumble away exhausted
before the hunter.

Lamentations 1:6

When we are led by the world, we are led to barren places and the grasses consumed do not feed our spirit. We are left exhausted and in danger. Jeremiah writes, woe to those who lead others to destruction. When Jesus is not our shepherd, we are led astray and to evil places not meant to teach us truth or leads us to places of safety and contentment.

¹¹ “‘For this is what the Lord God says: See, I myself will search for my flock and look for them.

¹⁴ I will tend them in good pasture, and their grazing place will be on Israel’s lofty mountains. There they will lie down in a good grazing place; they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

Ezekiel 34:11,14

God leads us to green lush beautiful pastures to rest and to fill our spiritual bellies with that which is good for us! It is truth our spirit seeks.

Pasture in these passages denotes the truths in which man is instructed, here such things as regard spiritual life; for spiritual life is such that if this pasturage fails, it languishes and as it were pines away as does the body when it lacks food.

That pasture denotes the good and truth which restore and sustain the soul or spirit of man, is clear from the Lord’s words in John:–

⁹ I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.

John 10:9

No matter where we live, for the most part we all hit a dry season, physically and spiritually. This psalm is not referring to God leading us to the perfect pasture of abundance like we tend to think. I listened to a podcast of an Israeli herder explaining that when it is the dry season, the west wind blows its humidity against the hillsides where it condenses on the cool rocks at night. That little bit of moisture (along with the meager 23 inches of rain Jerusalem gets each year) is just enough to grow those little sprigs of grass.

If you were to look at an ariel picture after it rains, you would see sprigs of grass on some areas of the hillsides facing the wind. These little green pastures are the pastures this Psalm is speaking about.

When these springs of grass grown, you can see dirt paths running across the hills. Those paths are where the shepherd allows his sheep to graze. The sheep are spaced out just enough so each get a belly full. It isn’t much grass but just enough to satisfy the sheep for the day.

This is how God shepherds us. He doesn’t lead us to lush green cattle pastures where we have everything in abundance. No, God leads us along the right paths through the little sprigs giving us just enough for today. Tomorrow, He will lead us along other paths to supply our daily need. Some days He may bless us with a lot of sprigs, and other days there may only be a little. But, there will always be enough for what we need.

As for lying down in green pastures, the shepherd creates enclosures where the sheep can rest at night in safety as well as eat. In this sense, the green pastures are a place for us to rest under the shepherd’s (God’s) watchful eye. God doesn’t “make” us lie down, but He offers His peace and contentment every day to those who seek it.

Isn’t that beautiful? It certainly changes our perspective of what David meant by green pastures, doesn’t it?