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The Interpreter's Bible supports the sequence here. Early in
the morning while the dew is still on the grass the shepherd
wakes the sheep. He leads them forth toward the pasture lands.
Perhaps the first stage of the journey is over a small mountain.
Soon they are going down the other side toward a quietly flowing
stream. The shepherd makes the sheep stop for a short rest. While
they rest they can drink from the stream and nibble at the rich
succulent grass. They are refreshed and are ready to move on,
always led by the shepherd who is thinking of their welfare.
For persons of faith, that is the picture of life. The poor
fellow who griped: "Life is just one darn thing after another,"
didn't know about the green pastures and the still waters. Nor
did he know the Shepherd. God wants to give us fulfillment and
peace; we demand abundance.
Someone pictures the stages of getting on in the world:
Stage one -- one car.
Stage two -- two cars.
Stage three -- a swimming pool in the garden.
Stage four -- an island in the pool to get away from it all.
There are so many lines of fracture in our living.
There is need for the green pastures and the still waters.
With a note of nostalgia John Quinn states the case:

Front Porches
NOBODY sits on porches any more
Of summer evenings heady with the scent
Of four-o'clocks and damp petunias,

Rocks in the creaking silence while the soft
Murmur of robins dwindles into dusk.
That interlude before the gathering night
Has set like junket, now is obsolete.
Ambitious men have not the patience nor the time,
To rest the heels of their world upon a rail.



(John Robert Quinn)

On the other hand two Scott Fitzgerald characters paint the
picture of contemporary boredom:

"What will we do with ourselves this afternoon?"
Daisy answers:
"What will we do with ourselves tomorrow,

And the day after that,
And the next 30 years?"

In our weariness and our frustration we need the old hymn:

"Art thou weary?
Art thou troubled?
Art thou sore distressed?
There's One to whom we come,
And coming find our rest."

The Lord is our Shepherd. The green pastures and the still waters
are real.
There is a custom in the British Navy, writes Margaret Blair
Johnstone, that when a crisis occurs on a fighting vessel --
explosion, fire, torpedo, bomb -- the "Still" is blown. What does
this mean? Every British fighting man knows. It means "Stop!
Freeze! Do nothing! Do not panic! Prepare to do the wise thing!
Calculate your position! Check your resources! Consider the
wisest course of action!" Following this course of action, many
lives have been saved, and many ships have come through.
This speaks to our breathless technological age. "Be still and
know." Don't push the panic button. "Be still and know." There is
a shepherding, providing, caring God -- there are still waters and
green pastures along the way.

In the contemporary crisis God is speaking; he is calling for
the "Still:"

Stop, pause, do nothing, appraise the situation, check your
resources, determine the wisest course of action.

Have a rendezvous with God. Have a tryst with truth. Life
demands it. This goes for my personal life, my home, my business,
my nation, my world. We are rushing headlong into dangerous
involvements.
One frustrated fellow in Brooklyn rushed out of his front door
and punched a passerby on the nose. In court he testified that he
had had a quarrel with his wife. Instead of punching her, he had
the bad luck to punch a police detective. The "still" would have
saved him a lot of trouble.
Verses from another Psalm point the way:

"Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever thou hadst founded
the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting
Thou art God ...
For a thousand years in thy sight
Are as but yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night ...
Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
And thy glory unto thy children.
And let the beauty of the Lord
Our God be upon us;
And establish thou the work
Of our hands upon us:
Yea, the work of our hands
Establish thou it!"
(Psalm 90 -- Selected verses)

This puts life in perspective.
There is one clear explanation of our frustration and our
exhaustion. We haven't found our way as persons in the New Age.
For about 6,000 years our ancestors lived a fairly steady life.
Things didn't change drastically. The pattern of life

remained about the same. It was mainly an agricultural, small
town type of life. There was the farm, and simple business. There
were plants and animals. The family -- parents and children --
worked together. It was a simple life. The church and the school
were at the center of life.
Suddenly, when I was a child a new world broke in upon us.
Great industries began to gobble up the members of the family. No
longer did family members work as a group. Then mothers started
to work away from home. Close ties with the children were lost.
Movies and television took over. Automobiles, airplanes, space
ships carried us around at great speeds. Life became a
combination of sound and speed. Children no longer had the fun of
making their toys. Drugs and alcohol became a way of life.
Humanity cannot absorb a new age in one generation. Our
fathers and mothers and our grandparents, through several
thousand years, had learned to be at home in the old pattern of
life. We have not yet learned how to handle the New World with
all its pressures. We are not going back to the Old World; we
must develop a rich quality of life in the New World. But how?
Long ago God blew the "Still:" "Be still and know that I am
God." Check out your resources; they are a gift from God. Your
physical energies, your spiritual energies are sufficient for the
modern world. God is full of surprises. Even the pressures of the
New Age and our desperation can drive us back to Faith. We are
forced to re-think life. The Christian is the key person for the
New Age. By faith he is oriented in the wisdom of the past and
the assurance of the future. The Christian is at home in the
Forever.
William Wordsworth had this insight into the depths of life:

Sweet Recess
"We scaled without a track
to ease our steps,
A steep ascent; and reached
a dreary plane,
With a tumultuous waste
of huge hill tops

Before us; savage region!
Which I paced
Dispirited: when all at once,
behold!
Beneath our feet a little lonely vale.
A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high
Among the mountains; even as if
the spot
Had been from eldest time by
wish of theirs
So placed, to be shut out from
All the world!
Urnlike it was in shape, deep
as an urn;
With rocks encompassed, save
that to the South
Was one small opening, where
a heath-clad ridge
Supplied a boundary less abrupt
and close;
A quiet treeless rook, with
two green fields,
A liquid pool that glittered
in the sun,
And one bare dwelling; one
abode, no more!
It seemed the home of poverty
and toil,
Though not of want: the little
field made green
By husbandry of many thrifty years,
Paid cheerful tribute to the
moorland house ... .
Ah! What a sweet recess thought
I, is here!
Instantly throwing down my
limbs at ease
Upon a bed of heath ...
How tenderly protected! Far and near
We have an image of the pristine earth ..."

There are so many ways to find sanctuary, to break the
tension, to renew the spirit. But too often we have ears and do
not hear; eyes and do not see. Even the disciples had difficulty
comprehending. Jesus had to prod their understanding: "Philip,
Philip, after all this time, after all this time, and you don't
know me." The Psalmist had to refresh the memory of his people:
"Before the mountains were brought forth, or even thou hadst
formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to
everlasting, thou art God (Psalm 90:2)." This we must know, e're
we find ourselves.
Once, in a strange way, I stumbled into peace. The soul must
find sanctuary: God requires it; life demands it. I was flying
with a bush pilot in Alaska, and I noticed that we were running
out of gas. We were flying over the wilderness down near Mount
McKinley. The pilot didn't seem to be bothered but I was. I
asked, "What are we going to do -- you can't buy that stuff down
here." His reply: "I'm glad we're running out of gas, because I
want to show you the most beautiful lake in the world." With that
he turned the little plane toward the sheer granite cliffs and
icy glaciers of Mount McKinley. I didn't see how anyone could
hang a lake up there against those cliffs and glaciers. Suddenly,
we broke through a ravine, and there it was. A bit of sapphire
three miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, surrounded by
tundra, banks of snow, silence and towering mountains.
Maneuvering a difficult turn, he put the plane down at the end of
the lake. We taxied to the other end, surrounded by beaver
hutches and leaping mountain trout. I saw his face fall -- his
camp had been raided by a grizzly bear. His tent was torn to
shreds; his rubber boat had been destroyed; all his cans of food
had been crushed and sucked dry of their contents. The one thing
that saved us was that the old bear did not like the smell of
gasoline, so the cans of gasoline had been untouched. There was
no trail to the lake. It was lost in beauty and complete
quietness -- a sanctuary! Every now and then when I am about to
suffer burn-out; my soul goes back to this spot and I am
refreshed and restored.

We don't have to continue stumbling around with our heads
down, crushed by fear, worry, guilt and hate. Our Heavenly Father
wants us to be free. He will forgive us, empower us, put us on
our feet and keep us there. True prayer is the key. Once I was
enjoying lunch at Belmont Abbey, sitting next to one of their
priest-teachers. I believe that he was a biology professor and
football coach. I asked, "How much time each day do you spend in
prayer and meditation?" His answer surprised me, "I spend two and
a half hours each morning." The failure to spend serious blocks
of time in prayer may be the point at which we Protestants are
failing.
We might not spend 2 1/2 hours each day. But it would make a
tremendous difference if we would only spend 15 to 20 minutes
each day in Bible reading, prayer and meditation -- thinking with
God on the issues and values of life and receiving from him
understanding, courage, hope, joy and peace. Our world needs
people who are in touch with the ultimate things of life, and
still in touch with people. "Be still and know." If we don't have
time, we do not have time for life. At times "He maketh me to lie
down (illness, exhaustion, accident, burn-out)," because he loves
me.
A friend of mine, Dr. William Wilson, formerly of Duke Medical
School, found his breakthrough into new life observing a
beautiful sunset during a canoe cruise in the wilderness of
Canada. Some find sanctuary in good music, some by relaxing in a
tub of hot water. When we served a church deep in the mountains
of western North Carolina and our children were small, my wife
Lillian would find her peace looking out over the kitchen sink at
Black Rock, a peak high in the Balsam Mountains. A doctor in our
church in Statesville would come by the church at 2 a.m.,
returning from surgery at the hospital. He would kneel at the
altar of a little chapel that we kept open and lit all night
long. There he would receive quietness, peace and power through a
definite sense of the presence of God. He had patience and
strength others did not understand.
Once I knelt where Jesus knelt on the shore of Galilee and
prayed as I watched the sun rise over the Syrian hills. As the

sun lightened the dark landscape I could hear and understand the
phrase of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory, forever, and forever, Amen." I was renewed;
and am renewed again and again by the memory. All these are
experiences of the "Still:" stop, freeze, appraise the situation,
review your resources, contemplate the wise course of action.
Gaze upon the mind of God!
In these days the family, as a unit, needs the experience of
the green pastures and the still waters. When our three children
were small the family spent a month in a little cabin 9,000 feet
up in the Rocky Mountains. We picked huckleberries and Lillian
made huckleberry pies. We caught beautiful rainbow trout in high
mountain streams. Robert told his mother: "I caught three trout
9,000 feet high." Our black Labrador spent the month chasing
chipmunks in the yard.
One day the three children and I walked 11 miles up beyond the
tree level to a little lake 12,000 feet high. The sheer precipice
of Long's Peak rose from this lake to 15,000 feet, touching the
sky above us. A little stream gurgled through the grass as the
grass gently swayed in the breeze. We could glimpse spots of the
old world far below. We were translated into a new world of peace
and freedom. Here, as a family, we unconsciously learned how to
appreciate each other, to forgive, to be helpful, to grow, to
catch distant visions, to be joyful and aware of our everlasting
future.
Especially, in the tensions of today do husbands and wives
need the quietness of green pastures and still waters. In order
to enrich their relationships, to deepen their understanding of
each other, to release new experiences of at-oneness and mutual
joy with each other, they should slip away for a week or a
weekend alone, together in some enchanting spot. But some
husbands and wives are afraid to look into the reflections that
are revealed in the deep, quiet pools of thought and self-
examination. They do not want to admit their faults, their
anxieties and their resentments. Their surface lives are
turbulent, because the inner person is struggling with
frustrations and doubts. These husbands and wives need to visit
the green

pastures and the still waters together, that they might discover
themselves in depth, and rediscover each other in love. It is
possible for love to be renewed. Walking hand in hand through the
mystic paths of Brook Green Gardens near Myrtle Beach, or
strolling together over the trails of Joyce Kilmer Forest in
western North Carolina, can fan into flame the old mysterious
feelings of tenderness, once so vivid and exciting.
But, sadly, the contemporary spirit is to hurry about
everything. Since we do not know how to cope with new ways of
life, we rush on, afraid to stop and face it. We rush on our
vacation; we rush to get home. We even rock a rocking chair at
dangerous speeds. We hurry to rest, but are too exhausted and
uptight to find repose. No wonder we burn-out. "The mind
diseased;" "the rooted sorrow;" "the written troubles of the
brain;" "that terrible stuff that weighs upon the heart."
Shakespeare drew an accurate picture of our tensions.
Thomas Kelley suggests a point of hope, even in this kind of world:

"Deep within us all there is an
Amazing inner sanctuary of the soul;
A holy place, a Divine Center,
A speaking source,
To which we continually return.
Eternity is at our hearts,
Pressing upon our time-worn lives,
Warning us with an intimation
of an astounding destiny,
Calling us home into itself."

Don't give up! Green pastures and still waters are real; and God
is there! And Jesus meant it when he pleaded:

"Come unto me
All ye who labor
And are heavy laden;
And I will give you rest."
(Matthew 11:28)

"Fear not; be not afraid," is still his message of assurance.

In his hour of trail Jesus went to his own green pasture, the
garden of Gethsemane. Kneeling at a stone under an ancient olive
tree the Master prayed, sweating as it were drops of blood. He
saw, even then, the shadow of the cross. He was not crushed, but
prayed, "Thy will, not mine, be done." He saw, through God's
eyes, that his death would be the instrument of the world's
redemption, he was at peace. He marched through the terrible
events of the next day with calm, and Divine dignity. He saved a
poor sinner on the next cross, and cried out in agony, yet
eternal assurance: "Into thy hands I commend my spirit." And then
the resurrection! The green pastures "will put foundations under
our feet and a sky of high visibility above our heads." This is
not an escape from reality; but an escape into reality. It is
moving with the Shepherd from the crushing facts of surface life,
into the unlimited healing experiences of the depths of life.
It was even in the wilderness that Jesus had discovered the
meaning of his Messiahship -- not bread, not show, not military
power -- but people and love and healing and eternal life. Jesus
loved the Sea of Galilee, the barren hills surrounding it, even
the quiet darkness of the early morning. There the Father
ministered to him.
Like Jesus, from the green pastures we can emerge into
effective action. We have time to spare, because God has time to
spare for us, and we emerge into a new sanity. By still waters,
we see the Hell of life for what it is. We learn to hate
stupidity -- even our own stupidity. With clearer vision we turn
to God. We see life "soul-sized." But too many of us are "God
Evaders." We rush from one frustrating responsibility to another,
and fail to stop at the places of renewal. Green pastures are not
just for the licking of our wounds; green pastures are for the
feeding of our souls. Even in the toughest encounters of life, we
are not far from the still waters. God can be found in strange
places.
What if we do have a Shepherd God? What if there is love at
the heart of the universe? And we do not have time to realize it,
nor faith to live by it? But perish, even when life is

available? This is the sorrow of God! This is the cross of
Christ!
It's just as simple as this: We perish under the demands of
the New Age; or, we discover the green pastures and the still
waters -- at the very heart of the New Age!
The "Still" has been blown! "Be still and know!"
"He maketh me to lie down in Green Pastures; He leadeth me
beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul."
This is the saving word for our day!