The   Lord   that   Cares     [   Jehovah - Raah   ]                                              "the Lord is My Sheperd"

The Lord is My Shepherd [ = Comforter - Host ]: I shall not want   [ > I lack nothing < ]. Psalm 23:1   NKJV

God's Promise: "Be Still and Know that I am God" Psalm 46:10
I. Goal

II. "...the God of Jacob...."
• God revealed Himself to His children as loving Father
  who met them at every crossroad of their lives
• as a Caring Shepherd "Like a Shepherd," Jacob told his family,
  "God has led me all my life" Gen 48:15f

• Despite:
  he tricked his brother twice
  at least once he suckered his blind father, then
  he out-crossed his double-crossing father-in-law by taking
  off with anything that was not nailed down

• BUT!   BUT!   BUT!:
  the LORD never forgot him
  He gave him food in the famine
  He gave him forgiveness in his failures, and
  He gave him faith in his final years

• Ask Jacob to desribe God in one word, his word would be
  Jehovah-Raah, the caring shepherd



• Assignment:   if you didn't do it yet -
  What is God to You? Give Him your own name!

• Assignment:   Spiritual Exercises - Answers to Questions

• Identify the two names or images that are most powerfully at work
  in shaping your understanding of God.

• What do these names reveal or conceal about the presence of
  God in the world?

• Evaluate why they are so significant for you.

• Should you nurture other names of images of God?

• Identify some specific areas where you see God at work in the world.

• How could you participate in what God is doing?

• Experiment for a day with limiting the number of times you draw
  people into a conversation about your life.

• Try instead to ask as many people as possible about their lives
  and the challenges they face.

• In what ways does that kind of disciplined attention to the
  needs of others move your own conversation beyond a
  preoccupation with I-questions?   Schmidt chapter 1
  
  

• Also consider these questions:
  • Review the above by recalling major principles and ideas

  • Examine the above through critical thinking and questioning

  • Apply the principles to your life

  • Compare the principles with biblical examples and instruction

  • Think more deeply and in different ways about the above

    [ = this may be viewed as "extra" study for the serious student ]

VI. My Prayer: