Rattled

What do a hairball, palmetto bug, the USPS, and the IRS have in common? They teamed up together to rattle me. I had never really considered the definition of rattled until I was watching a video that goes along with the Bible study Psalm 23: The Shepherd With Me. Jennifer Rothschild defines rattled as “thrown into a state of agitated confusion.” She was describing the characteristics of a sheep and how they are often rattled by the smallest thing to the point that they are incapable of moving until the shepherd comes and finds them and redirects them back to safety. I can totally relate.

I came home, tired after a long week, to find one of the cats had been sick…on the comforter…on my side of the bed. Not his fault because he has had some digestive issues that are partly of my making due to changing his food too much. Still, any thoughts of a brief nap were shot as I cleaned the spot and left it to dry.

Then, I got the mail out of the box to find a reminder about my mortgage being late, which I was very well aware of and still not sure how I was going to wrangle along with other bills this month. There was also another notice of a certified letter from the IRS, regarding a late tax payment because…well see earlier comment about money. I spent a few moments fuming about why the government thinks I could afford to pay more taxes and then wasted an hour online at the IRS website getting more depressed and rattled.

I ate dinner and was contemplating whether or not to buy a Bible study book and decided against it because I felt I shouldn’t buy anything given financial issues. Later, I went to check on the bed cover and found it dry, so I pulled the bed covers back and a palmetto bug jumped out from under the comforter. Of course, I jumped, swatted, and called for my pest control team (3 cats – who leisurely took their time in dispatching the interloper).

Rattled…I was definitely rattled. It was a little ironic because just last week I wrote a blog on trust and obey, and here I was having a melt down over 2 pieces of mail, a random incident, and a stupid bug. So, I relate to the sheep being easily rattled until they are frozen in place. The difference in me and the sheep is that the sheep is waiting on the shepherd to come find her, and I am lamenting all the possible terrible things that could happen if I don’t get things straightened out myself.

Then…the Shepherd found me.

I left the cats to their hunting and sat down to watch the video that goes along with the study and the Shepherd whispered to me. The scripture for the study was Psalm 23:1: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Jennifer Rothschild shared this simple but profound point:

“You make Jesus all you need, and then all you need is found in Jesus, In other words, like sheep, you pay more attention to the Shepherd who supplies your needs than you do to the needs themselves.”

Just like that the Shepherd picked me up, turned me around, and pointed me in the right direction again. The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack for nothing.  Then, I ordered the book because I realized that the enemy did not want me to have it, so it must be something the Lord wants me to hear. I used my birthday money to purchase it. I’m sure when the book gets here the enemy will try to “rattle” me again, but the Lord is my Shepherd, so I have nothing to worry about. In the meantime, I just got an offer for a short-term job for December which the Shepherd knew about even before I knew I needed it.

Here is a link to the book Psalm 23: The Shepherd With Me if you would like to read more.

#Psalm23Study