Message
by: Robert A. Schuller
The 23rd Psalm
starts off with the words that are probably the most beautiful
words we can hear. And that is “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
And I want you to repeat those words after me right now
because you need to hear those words. “The Lord
is my Shepherd.”
Now I want
you to make it personal. Here’s how you make it
personal. I’m going to say the Lord is Robert’s
Shepherd and you have to put your name in there. You ready?
“The Lord is Robert’s Shepherd.” Now
I hope you didn’t say Robert unless your name is
Robert. Some people do that, you know. What we have to
remember is that the Lord is MY Shepherd, He’s your
Shepherd, He is our Shepherd. And as such, what does that
mean? Now David who wrote these words knew exactly what
that meant. He spent countless hours shepherding his sheep.
He was truly a shepherd of shepherds. And he spent countless
nights in the wilderness and he knew the perils, he knew
the rewards, he knew the beauty of a starlit night in
the dark where he would sit out there in the silence and
could hear nothing but the bray of his sheep and the twinkle
of the stars. He knew it all. And he says, “The
Lord is my Shepherd. His rod and His staff, they comfort
me.” Now the rod is just nothing more than like
a Billy stick and the staff is a tool to guard and keep
the sheep close. Because by keeping them close he’s
able to comfort his sheep and so he has his staff to keep
them close. And there’s nothing that comforts more
than to feel the warmth of a hug and to feel the closeness
of another human being. And as we think about the Lord
today I want you to remember this prayer. The prayer is
pretty simple, it’s simply “Hold me, Lord.
Hold me, Lord, hold me.”
There are lots
of thankless jobs in this world and I think one of the
biggest or one of the most thankless jobs there is on
Planet Earth are the men and women who protect our cities
and our streets everyday. They are our peace officers.
And I can’t imagine the sights that our police officers
see day in and day out. When there is a tragedy they’re
the first ones there. If there’s an automobile accident
they’re the first ones there. If somebody fired
a weapon the first thing they do is call the police and
the police are the first ones on the scene. Sometimes
I would imagine if I was a police officer I’d probably
get callused to the sight of blood and to the sight of
tragedy. And yet I often think they’re the most
un-thanked people because they’re damned if they
do and damned if they don’t. It’s hard to
make people like you and thank you for coming and bringing
peace to a domestic dispute. So one of the things I want
to do this morning right now is I just would like to thank
our police officers, wherever you are across the world
and across the nation, and in our streets today, keeping
the streets of America safe. Would you please thank them
right now? We thank you.
After 9/11
my father and I went to New York City and there were countless
policemen who were killed in the tragedies of the destruction
of the towers. And when we went there it was only been
about 10 days after the tragedy and one of the things
we did is we went to the pier where the command center
was established. And one of the first people we saw were
the policemen, they were guarding the entrances to the
command center. And they recognized my father and here’s
this big, brawny, callused policeman who had seen everything.
And he saw my father, recognized who he was, and I saw
these two embrace, they hugged, bear hugs. I could hear
my father praying for this man and then tears started
streaming down his face.
I can’t
begin to tell you how many times as a pastor I have just
reached out to hurting people and have embraced them and
hugged them and prayed for them and tears start rolling
down their face. I don’t know how many times that’s
happened. And when we’re going through a tough time
and when we’re facing incredible odds and circumstances
and challenges that are too heavy for us to carry, there’s
nothing that feels better to the human soul than to feel
the chest of another living human being and to feel those
arms around us and then to feel the prayers that take
place when we’re comforted. “The Lord is my
Shepherd.” That means that I am God’s child.
That means I belong to the Shepherd, the Good Shepherd.
I belong to Jesus Christ and if you’ve accepted
Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior you can
say the exact same thing. Something different happens
when you have that kind of a relationship.
My wife and I have had pets in our family since we were
married. We’ve had every imaginable kind of animal
in our house that you wouldn’t even want to think
about. I’m talking not only cats and dogs, but I’m
talking bunnies and parrots and fish and turtles. You
name the list, we’ve had them. My idea of a dog
is a real animal. You know, a Rottweiler, that’s
a real dog. Our last dog was a fabulous animal. Her name
was Mia and she was a cross between a Golden Retriever
and a Black Lab and she looked like a longhaired black
lab. And she was just a beautiful, nice dog. She would
do all these tricks. I would go PHEW and she would lay
down and play dead. She would. It was terrific. And I’d
go, Mia, go to bed. And she’d turn around and go
and lay in her bed. I mean she was beautiful, wonderful
dog, but she became old and she was gone and my wife went
through major withdrawals. We are in a tiny house and
we couldn’t have a big dog anymore. We decided to
go with cats and that didn’t work.
I come home
one day and here this tiny little white fluff ball, not
a real dog but a Maltese. The kind of thing that Paris
Hilton would carry in her bag, you know? And this is our
dog? I don’t think so. You expect me to walk this
thing? It’s just not my cup of tea. Now don’t
get me wrong, it’s a sweet animal. He’s just
as nice as can be. But he’s.. well now he’s
a year old and he’s a big Maltese. And the other
day, he knows who he belongs to. He is not my dog even
though he’ll come up and cuddle next to me and he’s
nice to pet, he’s a lap dog and everything. But
he’s not my dog, he is, actually he’s supposed
to be Christina’s dog but it’s now Donna’s
dog. It’s kind of a complicated story. The dog always
knows whose dog he is, okay?
So the routine
in the morning is we get up and then we stick him outside
so he can do his thing and then we leave the door open
and pretty soon he comes, after roaming, you know, running
around the outside for a half hour or so he comes in the
house and his paws are usually wet from the dew and we
go about the day. Well I’m sitting there at my desk
working and all of a sudden I smell something. What is
that? Something really smells. This is bad. And I look
and there’s Bentley hiding underneath my desk. Bentley’s
our Maltese. Well he got into something outside and it
wasn’t pretty and it didn’t smell very good
and he tried to get this stuff off him so he rolled all
around so it was all over him. So here’s this white
dog with all this brown stuff all over him and he smells
really, really bad. Well I did what any grown American
husband would do, “Donna, your dog. Get your dog.
Get Bentley, he’s got a problem.” And since
Bentley is Donna’s dog she said, “Oh, Bentley,
oh, look at you. You poor thing.” And she picks
him up and she takes him to the bathtub and she gets him
all washed up and cleaned up and he comes running out
of the bathtub looking a drowned rat. He is the ugliest
thing when he is wet. His hair is straight and he just
looks like a big rat, not attractive. Then he got all
fluffed up as he dried and he jumped on my lap and I petted
him some more.
What’s
the difference between Donna and I? She owns Bentley.
Bentley belongs to her. She loves Bentley like I couldn’t
quite love him the same way. And when we think about the
Lord being our Shepherd. “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
That means when I get into a big mess and I’m really
dirty and I’m really filthy and I really stink and
I’ve really messed up there’s one place I
know I can turn, and there’s one place I know I’m
going to get straightened out. And there’s one place
I know I’m going to be loved and cleaned and cared
for. “The Lord is my Shepherd.” The Lord is
MY Shepherd. And as my Shepherd He reaches out and He
embraces us and He brings us into His hold and He cleans
us and He restores us and He makes us as new. He comforts
us. And so we must constantly hold onto this hope, hold
onto it with all of your might and your strength and never
let go. And simply do what God has called us to do.
In the Sishu Bhavan Children’s Home in Calcutta,
India there is a sign that Mother Teresa put up there
herself. And this is what it reads: People are unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered: love them anyway. If you
do good people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives:
do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends
and true enemies: succeed anyway. The good you do will
be forgotten tomorrow: do good anyway. Honesty and frankness
make you vulnerable: be honest and frank anyway. What
you spent years building may be destroyed over night:
build anyway. People really need help but may attack you
if you do help them: help people anyway. Give the world
the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth:
give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
“As a
mother comforts her child so I will comfort you, says
the Lord.” You can read it yourself. It’s
in Isaiah 66:13. “As a mother comforts her child
so I will comfort you.”
My 18-year
old son is a tough 18-year old young man. How tough is
he? Well let me tell you, when he was 10 years old he
was ready to test for his 2nd degree black belt in Tai
Kwon Do. Do you know what he does for recreation and fun
now? He does Jujitsu and Mui Tai wrestling. He loves to
get out there and scrapple and it’s all for fun,
it’s all for fun. Well the other morning he woke
up and his ankles were killing him. He walks up; it was
like 6:00 in the morning. He goes, I can’t sleep
and he’s practically in tears because his ankles
are so painful. I said, well you know, let’s put
them on some ice. And I put them on ice and he was still
complaining about it. His mother comes up, sees his ankles
like that and what does she do? She starts massaging them
and rubbing them and she goes and she gets the eucalyptus
oil, you know the government tree oils, u-clipped-us.
She gets the eucalyptus oil and she massages his feet
with that and he just starts feeling so much better. And
I put ice on his ankles. Well that wasn’t good enough?
There’s something special about a mother’s
love. And it’s recognized in the Bible and it’s
that kind of comfort and touch and peace and goodness
that God promises to each of us. “As a mother comforts
her child so I comfort you.” “The Lord is
MY Shepherd. His rod and His staff, they comfort me.”
As a mother loves us, a child, so God loves me. And so
today we pray the prayer, “hold me, Lord.”