He clings to what he knows...

"In the darkness, Jesus doesn't analyze what he doesn't know. He clings to what he knows." 

- Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life.

Wow, that sentence hit home and made me think...he doesn't analyze what he doesn't know, but he clings to what he knows. What would that look like in my life? I think about things A) way too often, B) a lot, and C) very slowly. I overthink, I under think, I analyze, I question, I process, I think and think and think until I have thought myself around in circles and then some... While I think processing is good and healthy and a life without thinking wouldn't get you very far either, I long to be able to say, I don't worry about what I don't know, but cling to what I do know.

On the cross, when Jesus was being crucified, he began to quote Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He meditates on this and maybe set out to say the entire Psalm... To know the Scripture so well, that when the darkest moment in his life came, he held tightly to what he knew, to what he knew gave him life and brought him light, and in the darkness, he didn't question, he didn't analyze, but he placed confident hope in his Father.

I long for my life and for those darkest moments to look like that. I don't analyze what I don't know, but I cling to what I do. "Both the child and the cynic walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The cynic focuses on the darkness; the child focuses on the Shepherd." - Paul E. Miller

If you take the Good Shepherd out of Psalm 23, you are left alone in a world of evil. Miller states, "We are left obsessing over our wants in the valley of the shadow of death, paralyzed by fear in the presence of our enemies." But with the Good Shepherd, we are no longer sheep without a shepherd, we are sheep being led by THE Shepherd. And that alone is enough to cling to... To stop analyzing, and to start abiding...that's my for prayer today.