Imagery Shift.

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." - Psalm 23:5

The imagry shifts in Psalm 23 from a Shepherd and sheep to a banquet, with God as Host.

Life in Jesus is a banquet! He's not talking about heaven where there will be no enemies, he means here and now!

Sure there are enemies, and difficulties, tragedies, and hurts but there is God's grace and abundance also available to more than make up for it!

It's like a bumper sticker I saw,

"The worse day fishing is better than the best day working".

I like work, but the worst day in Christ is better than the best days without him.

- fritz

Where are God's blessings?

They will name him Emmanuel (Hebrew for "God is with us") - Matthew 1:23 (Message)

In Christ God is with us in our life's situation now. This is very hard to realize when the car breaks down, the children are sick, the job is floundering, and more sometimes all at once.

The fact is we must see our lives and circumstances as the place of God's blessing, the place of service, and the place of our current calling. The Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul said,

"we know that all things work together for good to them that love God ... called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28

We must hold tight (in spite of opposite feelings) to the knowledge that God is at work through the good and difficult - not that all things we experience are good things but that God is using all things, even the unwanted, for our good.¹

"God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are, and if we faithlessly discard situation after situation, moment after moment, as not being “right,” we will simply have no place to receive his kingdom into our life. For those situations and moments are our life."²

- fritz


^{1 - see also: "Escapism in the Bible" (June 4, 2010)
2 - The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, published by HarperCollins, copyright 1998}