A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23 By W. Phillip Keller – Chapter 10 Reflection:
What are the “summertime flies” in your life that appear and captivate your attention, leaving you restless?
I’ve recently come to realize that the “summertime flies” I deal with in my current season of life often come in dealing with others at work…… That sounds a bit harsh…… Let me back up and clarify that it’s not everyone at work, but just a small handful of individuals.
I have an example from just this past week. Now I work as a network engineer, and I do not want to bore or confuse you with a bunch of technical jargon, so I’ll use the analogy of a pizza. Just this past week I received a request for a pizza, the request was for a single topping pizza, but the requestor listed four different toppings. When I reached out to the requestor and asked for clarification, I found that he wasn’t quite sure which topping he wanted. He advised that I should reach out to another pizza chef more familiar with this type of pizza and figure it out.
Now under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have too much of an issue reaching out to the other pizza chef, but currently, my team is extremely busy. Pizza orders are flying in faster than we can keep up with. So I politely explained to him that the responsibility to figure out what kind of topping he wanted on his pizza fell on the requestor, the responsibility fell on him. He obliged, but, as I came to find out, wasn’t too thrilled about it.
The next several days contained several emails between the two of us, as well as both of our management teams in the CC line, while we tried to hash this out. The first 3 or 4 emails were extraordinarily vague, and he never really came right out and said, ‘this is the topping I want on my pizza.’ As a result, some of the emails prompted more questions, which only added to both of our frustrations. In the end, we finally figured out what he wanted, but along the way, we each probably said things that we shouldn’t have said. The final email was more or less a rant about how this shouldn’t have been so difficult, and it was more or less my fault that I didn’t understand, and it would have been easier if I would have just reached out to the other pizza chef in the first place.
I actually lost sleep over this. When all was said and done, I was so frustrated that I woke up in the wee hours of this past Saturday morning and was unable to go back to sleep. My mind was racing and replaying the whole scenario over and over in my head. And to be clear, throughout all of this, I had the full support of my manager. So there was no reason for me to lose sleep over it. It was only due to my self-doubt and attacks from the enemy.
Now I know this is a silly example and an extreme one at that. I actually receive these messed up pizza requests on almost a daily basis. And I’m not sure I’ve ever lost sleep over them. The difference with this one was that usually when I reach out for clarification, it is almost immediately provided. Almost no one tells me to go and ask someone else, and I don’t think I’ve ever been the subject of a rant like I was in the final email.
These are my summertime flies. Not just this extreme example, but the simpler ones as well. I often find myself getting frustrated and “venting” to my counterparts. I’ve recently come to realize, in our 23 Ministry study of the Gospel of John, that in these moments I do not love others well, and that I serve as a pretty poor example to others when I allow these summertime flies to get to me.
So the question becomes, what do I do about it? When these summertime flies attack, how do I combat them? I think the answer Phillip Keller had in mind in this chapter is clear. It is with the anointing power of the Holy Spirit that I can find peace and rest from these pesky annoyances.
It has long been a prayer of mine that the Lord renews his spirit in me each day. I pray that He guides me and leads me in my thoughts and decisions. And more recently, I pray that He renews my heart each day, that I would see others the way that He sees them, and that I would love like he loves.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that when Keller talks about the shepherd’s remedy for summertime flies, it is the same remedy for scab. Scab represents sin. So the same remedy for the things that make us restless is the same remedy for sin in our lives. It is the anointing power of the Holy Spirit that allows us to rest and also allows us to overcome the sin in our lives. It’s interesting because so often, at least for me, the presence of these summertime files often leads to sin in my life.
So in this extreme example given above, I did just what I think Keller is suggesting in this chapter. I called on the anointing power of the Holy Spirit and asked that he lead me to rest on this situation. I asked for forgiveness in any area that I may have sinned during this encounter and I leaned into his word. I’m sleeping much better now.