But Like a Child at Home

The Undefeated
Oct 18, 2016
5 min read

So this is now my favorite song of praise.

My Shepherd will supply my need:

Jehovah is His Name;

In pastures fresh He makes me feed,

Beside the living stream.

He brings my wandering spirit back

When I forsake His ways,

And leads me, for His mercy's sake,

In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death,

Thy presence is my stay;

A word of Thy supporting breath

Drives all my fears away.

Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,

Doth still my table spread;

My cup with blessings overflows,

Thine oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God

Attend me all my days;

O may Thy house be my abode,

And all my work be praise!

There would I find a settled rest,

While others go and come;

No more a stranger, nor a guest,

But like a child at home.

I love it because it is so honest. And if you know me at all then you know I’m an honest person.

That is something you can always count on, especially if you’re asking for my honesty. Sometimes I may attempt to hold my tongue.

“My Shepherd will supply my need”

Let’s just stop there. How many of us have ever doubted this? It’s okay to raise your hands or for those of you in coffee shops, you can nod, say, “word”, or sigh deeply and remove some of the anxiety you have surrounding that sentence.

Most of the time it feels the opposite. I feel as insignificant as the ladybug crawling on a flower.

But how lovely is it that the song is named this and is a reminder that though our feelings would have us believe we are nothing, Jesus has staked his name on the fact that he loves us so much that he died for us. He loves us so much and knows us so well that in music both christian and not, it is clear that fear is something He never meant for us to experience and that He is the antidote to that slow death that so efficiently blinds us to the truth. The truth being that we aren’t alone.

You are not alone.

“He brings my wandering spirit back when I forsake His ways, and leads me, for His mercy’s sake in paths of truth and grace.”

So even when I walk, meander, and run away from Him, he comes looking for me. He finds me and leads me back to Him.

My pain, though it feels it, will not take me from Him but rather draw me in. If you’re experiencing pain and find it hard to connect with God, you should know that it’s normal. I’m not saying I should run from God, but God doesn’t hate me for being afraid or curse me for not knowing how to deal. He loves me. Love bears our fear. Love bears running after us. Love bears us when we can no longer hold ourselves up.

I think it can seem scary to say to someone that they have a right to their pain. A lot of times pain gets sequestered to a corner in Christianity. People don’t know how to sit with you in your pain. They know exactly how to fix you though.

****You can’t see me, but I just did the world’s biggest eye roll.****

God isn’t afraid of your pain. He jumps down into your pit of darkness and sits. You can jam to Nirvana or Hillsong. Though I am definitely a fan of jamming to OneRepublic, David Bowie, or Sleeping At Last. He won’t judge you for your pain and when you’re strong enough, He’ll lead you out of your pit.

“When I walk through the shades of death, Thy presence is my stay.”

It definitely feels like I’m walking through the shades of death. I have pretty terrible pain on a regular basis.

It can make walking very difficult and turn opening a door into the worst moments of the day. Sometimes I can’t grip the handle well enough to open the door, and then for the rest of the day my joints are all red and painful.

….so that can kinda feel like death. But I find Him in the peace of the river, in the wind that beats back my tears, in the rain that waters my soul, and in the silence of the night at the waters edge.

And sometimes in the colors of the wind… ;)

And that peace can, “drive all my fears away”.

“My cup with blessings overflows,

Thine oil anoints my head.”

It doesn’t always feel like my cup is overflowing with blessings…

Overflowing with something else entirely? yeah…it feels like crap. It’s okay to be angry about your pain.

Most of the time people aren’t comfortable with your anger about your pain either. That sounds a lot like depression and

that’s when your pain, to those specific people, looks like a choice rather than something that is happening to you.

But in being so aware of pain I can use that attention to detail to notice other things.

Like how lovely it is to snuggle into my mom when she comes home at the end of the day.

How wonderful it makes me feel when my little sisters text/message/comment/like and just plain ole communicate with me.

On the page of this blog that is called, “Inspiring people”. I like to think that those people are some of the many reasons my cup overflows.

“The sure provisions of my God

Attend me all my days”

All my days. You mean I really am never alone? Fantastic.

A lot of days it doesn’t feel like I’m being sustained. It feels like I’m slowly running out of sustenance.

But I never do run out. You’re still here reading this. You’re being sustained….even if it doesn’t feel like it.

“O may Thy house be my abode,

And all my work be praise!

There would I find a settled rest,

While others go and come;

No more a stranger, nor a guest,

But like a child at home.”

I always thought of God’s house as being inside the pearly gates.

I would hope that my life, all my work, and all of my relationships would be praise to Him.

That would be the epitome of my hopes and prayers of my life. That my life would serve the purpose to make Him more well known. Excuse me while I ugly cry at the thought.

Finally in my Father’s house I would be at rest. No more struggling. No more tears. Peace.

No more a stranger and neither a guest in a world I wasn’t made for.

Oh that I would be a child at home in my Father’s house.

Sincerely Yours,

The Undefeated

P.S. Here's the song I'm talking about.