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The God for All Terrains

Rev. Doug Pratt — April 25, 2010
 

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The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
      ²He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
      ³he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness 

      for his name’s sake.
⁴Even though I walk
      
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, 

      for you are with me;
  your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
⁵You prepare a table before me
      
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; 

      my cup overflows.
⁶Surely goodness and love will follow me
      
all the days of my life,
  and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Psalm 23

All Terrain Vehicles

In 1970 Honda Motors of Japan manufactured the first three-wheel cycle designed for off-road use, with larger low-pressure tires and a smaller engine than its high-performance two-wheel street motorcycles. They were hailed as opening up a whole new market for outdoorsmen and adventurers; here in America they were dubbed “all terrain vehicles” or ATVs. The product evolved and developed; Suzuki made the first four-wheel ATVs in 1982, and by 1987 the three-wheelers were dropped completely due to safety concerns (the three-wheels having proved much less stable and more prone to rollovers than the four-wheels). New uses have been discovered for ATVs in the areas of farming, ranching and recreation, and new sports like ATV Motocross and Mud Racing have been developed for these popular vehicles. Thousands of them are sold in the U.S. each year.

But their title is a bit misleading and inaccurate. “All Terrain Vehicles” may work well in some areas where two-wheel motorcycles and passenger cars can’t go. Zooming through forest trails in Upper Michigan or crossing the Sonoran Desert of Arizona may be ideal for an ATV. But there are other types of terrain where they are essentially worthless. If you want to traverse the Rocky Mountains in the winter, you’d be better off with a snowmobile. If you want to cross the Everglades in the rainy season, you’d be wise to use an airboat with the big propeller on the back. And if you want to take the direct route from here to Texas across the Gulf of Mexico, I would strongly recommend a cabin cruiser rather than an ATV. Actually, there is no man-made vehicle that can equally handle all types of terrain.

Just as Planet Earth encompasses a phenomenal variety of landscapes and terrain, so, too, does our human experience. In the course of one lifetime we can go through an amazing range of emotions and circumstances, consisting of trials and triumphs, joys and sorrows. Many writers, including authors of portions of scripture, have pictured life as a long trip or journey. Today we are considering this image, using some of the most well-known word pictures in the Book of Psalms. The consistent teaching of the Bible is that, for those who will trust in Him, the God of the Bible will prove to be a “God for all terrains” — One who is there for us through all the ups and downs of life.

The Terrains of Human Experience

Let’s review the vast range of human experiences that can come to us along our trip of a lifetime. In our Old Testament text, the beloved and well-known 23rd Psalm, we find that sometimes life brings joy, refreshment and renewal: “He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters” (23:2). The extended metaphor or word-picture of the experience of sheep under a shepherd’s care in the ancient Middle East points out that the fruitful meadows and the fresh, gently-flowing streams provided the basic needs for the sheep: food and water in abundance were sometimes available. For many of us, the meadows and streams are available to us now. We’re in a good place. Our financial needs are met, our job is going well or we’re comfortably retired, our family is doing well, our health is good, and we’re enjoying the particular meadow of Southwest Florida to which our Shepherd has led us. But that’s not the case for all of us, and it won’t be the permanent or lifelong condition of any of us.

For Psalm 23 then describes to us a very different terrain: the notorious “valley of the shadow of death” (23:4). The landscape of the Holy Land includes not only babbling brooks and gently sloping meadows but also steep mountains, with dark and treacherous canyons carved through them. Sometimes, in order to take his flock from one meadow to another, the only way was through one of those canyons. The footing could be treacherous, and predators could lurk in ambush. This corresponds to the deep and dark emotional experiences of life. The “valley of the shadow” can represent the death of a parent or, even more traumatic, the death of a spouse or child. The “valley of the shadow” can represent a diagnosis of cancer, a heart blockage, clinical depression, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s or glaucoma. We enter the “valley of the shadow” when our financial world crashes or our marriage ends in divorce. The Bible tells us plainly that these are all part of life. And God is as much our Shepherd in the dark canyons as in the grassy meadows.

And then Psalm 23 describes, by inference or logical conclusion, another type of terrain: that marked by brambles and thorn bushes. Sometimes, in moving from pasture to pasture, the path on which the Shepherd led His flock took them through vegetation that cut and scratched and brought pain. We are reminded of this in verse 5: “You anoint my head with oil.” Though anointing could be done of a king called to high office, most students of the Bible believe this is actually referring to the continuing image of the sheep and Shepherd.

Anointing oil was used for healing, soothing, cleansing and preventing infection in those sheep that suffered cuts and scratches as they journeyed through thorny terrain. Life delivers its share of wounds — hurts, bruises and disappointments — to humans as well as to sheep. Sometimes we’re hurt by conflict with others, by cruel or thoughtless words, or by faceless bureaucracies passing rules and policies and making decisions that negatively impact us. Sometimes the physical and emotional bruises, injuries and illnesses come by accident, with no one to blame. We need a God who is a source of healing for our hurt and pain, not One who just idly watches as we’re comfortably grazing.

The Book of Psalms has many other images of the different terrains of life. Psalm 42:1 says “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” Here are pictured those parts of the Middle East that are dry and barren deserts; the author compares the “desert” experiences of life to a deer that is desperately thirsty, searching for a stream or oasis. Your life and mine have their desert moments, when we are pressing on with our duties and responsibilities, working hard, carrying our burdens, trudging as if through a dry wilderness; we long for a break, a bit of relief, some fresh water to quench our thirst. We need a God who can accompany us through those desert wanderings.
Psalm 18:33 shows another experience: “He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights.” This image is of a nimble-footed deer that has climbed to the top of a high mountain, where the air is clear and the view is breath-taking. Life brings its mountaintop experiences to us as well: weddings and graduations, new jobs and promotions, the birth of children and grandchildren, athletic victories, exotic travel and political victories. These experiences make us feel “on top of the world.” We need a God who is with us in our successes and triumphs, to help us celebrate them and not misuse them, who can lead us along on the tricky footing of the pinnacle and protect us from falling.

And then back to Psalm 23, which ends with these beloved words of promise: “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The end of life’s journey will come for each of us. By our choices during the journey we determine what our final destination is. Eternity in God’s house is never forced on anyone. But it is offered to those who will embrace and follow the One who offers to be our Shepherd.

Every one of us will someday draw our final breath. At that moment, if not before, the only thing that will matter in our minds is: What’s next? We need a God who is going to not only accompany us along the trip of life, crossing every terrain with us, but who will also lead us to our final home.

A Personal Journey

And so the Book of Psalms speaks truth and reality and hope. You and I will encounter a vast range of experiences in our lifetime. And the God of the Bible, the only true God there is, makes a personal offer to travel by our side in a personal relationship with us. His presence is unique and individual to each one, because everyone’s trip is unique. No other person covers exactly the same terrain and has exactly the same experiences you do — not even your spouse, your brother or sister, or your closest friend.

Our terrain in life is partially determined by our choices and decisions, but not entirely. Sometimes “stuff happens,” and what matters is how we respond. None of us can completely project ourselves into another person’s experiences — because our “landscape” is not just the material and physical events of our world, but also our mental, emotional and spiritual reactions to them. Two people may be sitting next to one another in church on a Sunday morning; they both appear neat, well-dressed, comfortable, and successful. One of them is feeling blessed, thankful and contented in their current lot. The other person is dying inside, bleeding from hurt or worry or fear or a thousand other shocks. Because we can’t see inside, we can only know what’s going on if a person shares it with us.

Even similar events produce different reactions in people. As a pastor for over three decades, I’ve been privileged to walk beside people who are dealing with loss. One man’s wife passed away six months ago after a long battle with cancer; he has grieved in a healthy way and is now moving on with his life and plans and is dating another woman. Another man of about the same age, whose wife also died a half year ago, is struggling, hurting and emotionally upside-down, unable to see a path to the future. Neither is right and neither is wrong. They’re just different. The first man didn’t love his wife less than the second. The second man isn’t less successful or spiritually healthy than the first. Each person’s journey covers different terrain. I’ve seen it in the career ups and downs that come to us: one person loses a job and looks upon it as a positive opportunity to make a career shift, while another is laid off or “down-sized” and it causes a terrific blow to his self-confidence.

Everybody’s experience is at least somewhat unique. That is why we long for a God who doesn’t just care for the generic “world” of faceless masses, but who knows us individually, by name. You need a God who, in the words of Paul Young, author of The Shack, is “especially fond of you.”

Don’t Go it Alone

How does a personal relationship with this “God of all terrains” help us practically as we go up and down over the course of a 50- or 70- or 90-year lifetime journey? He offers what we need in each situation and challenge.

When we are in green pastures, He renews our strength and keeps us from wandering away through being distracted or complacent. That’s why the Bible and our times of worship together often prick our conscience to give back, to serve, and to maintain our personal discipline and prayer lives when things are going well for us.
When we are on the mountaintops of success and accomplishment, His Spirit speaks words to our conscience to keep us from being proud or overconfident or slipping by taking our eyes off His ways.

When we have been cut and hurt by life’s brambles and blows, He helps to comfort us and leads us to places to receive the healing oil. Paul Young, who was with us less than two weeks ago, talked about the pain and resentment and “great sadness” he carried around inside — in what he labeled his “shack” of inner guilt and shame and bitterness — until the Lord brought him to the place where he would open up and let the healing power come in. Some of us are perhaps at that point now: the wounds have been hurting too long, and we’re willing to begin following the long path to healing.

And when we come to the deep canyons, those “valleys of the shadow,” when we face the really scary dangers of life and even death itself, God is there with us to give us courage and to see the next step. Our human tendency, when we think about the “valleys of the shadow of death” that may lie before us, is to want to pray, “God, please keep me out of them.” Sometimes He does so, but not always. What we need to pray is, “God, if that is my path, stay close to me as I go through that valley — and help me stay close to You!”

Life is Difficult

The year was 1978. A wave of “pop psychology” books had flooded the American marketplace. Freudian and Jungian and Skinnerian and Rogerian counseling practitioners were arguing for their various approaches to solving life’s problems. Authors proclaimed “I’m OK, you’re OK.” The self-help and positive thinking movements were in full flower. And then an unknown Christian clinical psychologist published a book entitled The Road Less Traveled. And Dr. Scott Peck began his book with this simple sentence: “Life is difficult.”

It was like a splash of cold water in the face of America. Peck explained that he often encountered in counseling people who were moaning and complaining about their problems and burdens and the unfair things that had happened to them — “as if,” Peck said, “life should be easy.” But he also admitted to understanding how they felt, “because I’ve done plenty of my share of moaning.” Life is a series of problems. We can either moan about them, or we can face and overcome them.

We heard in the news recently about a woman in Kentucky who adopted a boy from a Russian orphanage. When she brought him into her home and found that he had, as many of these kids do, serious psychological and behavioral issues, she stuck him on a plane back to Moscow. Obviously she wasn’t prepared for what she had committed to.

It reminded me of the story that hit the wire services several years ago. A young unmarried mom in her late teens left her two-year-old in her apartment while she went out bar-hopping with friends one evening. The neighbors heard the baby’s wailing for hours, knocked on the door and, finding it ajar, went inside only to discover the little child was all alone. When the mother came home to find the police waiting for her, she explained that she felt she deserved a night for herself. “Nobody told me being a mother would be so hard,” she explained. Needless to say, she lost custody of her child to a foster home and faced jail time for child neglect — because she didn’t realize what Scott Peck says is the fundamental reality: “Life is difficult.”

It’s true for everything we do. Marriage is difficult sometimes — to live with another imperfect person. Work is difficult. Sometimes I encounter young pastors who are disillusioned because they went into the ministry thinking everyone would approve of them and would be nice to each other. Believe me, pastoral ministry is difficult. Medicine is difficult: doctors may be well-compensated, but they face long hours and lots of stress. Teaching is difficult, landscaping is difficult, management is difficult, truck driving is difficult, accounting is difficult. Every aspect of life, every role we take on, and every relationship we enter into has its challenges.
And that is exactly why we need God to be part of our daily lives. He is — count on it — the “God for all terrains.”