... for every animal of the forest is Mine,

the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know every bird of the mountains,

and the creatures of the field are Mine.

Psalm 50: 10 - 11

The cattle, the corn, the trail, and this glorious day.  The second of a two day bike trail ride; the sun is high, but the breeze still cool.  The scenery melts from farmland to river to forest.  Though an occasional airplane passes over, there's not a hint of the constant city background roar of traffic.  

Peace; 

       beauty;

                 living senses;

                            open heart.

  He doesn't need us, but He loves us.  

          He doesn't owe us, but He gifts us.

A day to glory in stunning gallery of His work.

I lie down and sleep,

I wake again

because the Lord sustains me.

I am not afraid of the thousands of people

who have taken their stand against me on every side.

Psalm 3:5-6

A feather bed on a battlefield.
            With the Lord as his encompassing shield,
                           David could lie down in complete faith.  

I don't think he even knew if he would wake up again the next morning.  It just didn't matter anymore.  He looked out on the angry throngs around him,
                                      he heard their jeering threats,
                                                  he cried out to the only one above the reach of their weapons.

The charge of his desperate prayer?
                         Not a strategy for battle
                                        or a plan for escape,
                                             not a promise of great victory tomorrow,
                               
just sleep.

         Lie down,
                      relax,
                           rest in the faith
                                        of the one
                                                who holds you in his hands.

Katy Trail Milepost 35

He is like a tree 

planted beside streams of water 

that bears its fruit in season

and

whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

Psalm 1:3

In the almost quiet on a gravely trail, a bench sits silent before a tiny lagoon.  The water pools gently here as the wide Missouri lumbers on.  The trees along its edges curl forward sucking eagerly at its life-giving flow.  Lush and strong and green they thrive resting in the gifts of God. 

His word the waters of my soul; waiting, longing to sustain me, if I'm only wise enough to rest like the tree in the endless nourishing flow.

I wait for the Lord

more than the watchmen for the morning --

more than the watchmen for the morning.

Psalm 130:6

In the depths of a moonless night, a watchman stands tense, alert to every sound.  A rustle of brush, the crack of a twig could be a frightened mouse scurrying for cover; or an advancing army creeping toward the city.  

He longs for light, for vision, for the flood of information revealed by the dawn.  A battle to plan or an embarrassed laugh of relief, anything is better than the coiled spring of wondering, of waiting for what can't be seen.

Waiting for the Lord. Waiting for the light.  Living in the longing for the dawning glow that illuminates the truth of all that commotion stumbling through the night.