Psalm 23
5/3/09
She had lived in the same house for most of her life. She was even born there, but now in her mid-90’s she was no longer safe to live on her own. She’d had several bad falls and the last one broke her hip.
Her doctor and her children were insisting it was time she give up the home she loved and move into assisted living.It was her darkest valley. Life as she knew it was over and at 93 a new way of living that she had fought against with every bone in her frail body was being forced upon her. How could she possibly do this?
He had just been handed the inevitable pink slip. He had an hour to clear his desk and leave the building. It was nothing personal they said. He was a good worker – one of their best --- but the company was going bankrupt and they had to cut jobs. They were sorry --- so very sorry.
But sorry wasn’t going to pay the mortgage. Sorry wouldn’t pay the bills and put food on the table. Sorry wouldn’t buy insurance for a child with diabetes and a wife who was pregnant. How was he supposed to make it through the darkness of despair that would in the end destroy his pride?
She slumped down on the couch, still in the sweats she wore 24/7, her hair lank, her body in need of a hot shower, but she didn’t have the energy or the will to get up and start moving so she just sat there, staring at the tv that droned in the background. She wasn’t really watching it. That would take too much effort.
They said she was depressed. She supposed they could be right. All she knew was that she didn’t care. Her body ached with the numbness of her mind. Everything seemed senseless, useless, and all she could do was sink down even deeper into the grey that life had become. She was beyond despair.
And so they walked through the valley of darkness – each of them in their own way, wondering what to do next, how to make it through. This Psalm was written for them, for you and for me when we face our own valleys of despair.
It is an intensely personal Psalm reminding us of a single basic truth. God is with us and He will show us the way. He is not a God who is way up there, a God who doesn’t care, who doesn’t get involved in the day to day crisis and transitions of life when we don’t know where to go, where to turn.
This is a Psalm that doesn’t insist that everything is coming up roses. It is not a put-a-smile-on-your-face-and-pretend-that-nothing-is-wrong kind of faith. No. This Psalm is written for those moments of challenge when we must take a leap of faith – when life is changing and everything we believe in is called into question.
It is a Psalm that knows that in each life there will be a time of dark valleys, but it is also a Psalm that proves the old gospel tune wrong: We don’t have to walk a lonesome valley. We don’t have to walk it by ourselves. God will be there walking it with us. I like the way that Leslie Brandt puts it in his book Psalms Now:
The Lord is my constant companion.
There is no need that He cannot fulfill.
Whether His course for me points
To the mountaintops of glorious joy
Or to valleys of human suffering,
He is by my side. He is ever present with me.
Sometimes in this world where circumstances can at times seem hopeless, a word from God, like this Psalm, is all that stands between us and hopelessness. I think that’s why when I ask people in crisis or in grief what passage of scripture they’d like me to read, it is almost always, without exception, the 23rd Psalm.
Ask someone who is older, who has been through life’s trials, what their favorite scripture is and it is inevitably this Psalm with its promises, for this Psalm isn’t just an affirmation that we will not walk alone. It is also an affirmation that our companion, our God, will provide what we need.
3These verses promise us safety, tenderness, and sweet nurture – food and drink and much needed rest for the journey ahead, and they tell us quite plainly that the resources for our journey lie not solely within us, but with God. It is those promises that will see us through when we surrender to His rod and His staff that will, in the end, comfort and guide us.
Once we surrender to His care, we can take comfort in the fact that we do not have to find our own way through the wilderness, through the darkness, for God will lead us, He will show us the way and be the light upon our path and not just any path, but the right path.
One of my favorite phrases in this Psalm is not the famous “The Lord is my shepherd”. It is not even “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” although that is pretty sweet. No. My favorite phrase is “even though”.
You see, I think the real meaning of the Psalm, of our faith are wrapped up in those words.
Even though the deck is stacked against me,
Even though I cannot see the way
Even though I don’t know how this will work out
The Lord is with me.
When the pain is severe, He is there to comfort me.
When the burden is heavy, He is there to lean upon.
When depression darkens my soul, He is there as the light on the way.
When I feel empty and alone, He fills my aching vacuum with His power.
My security is in His promise to be near me always and in the knowledge that He will never let me go.
The way the Psalm puts it is “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” But I like the way the Hebrew says it because in Hebrew the words for “shall follow me” literally means “pursues me, chasing me down.”
No matter how far off the “right” path we may stray, no matter how willing we are to settle for a little instead of the best, God will pursue us with His gifts of life, love, and strength so that we might dwell in the house of the Lord forever – not just in some bright future far, far away, not just after we die, in the glory of heaven, but now, right now, even in valleys of darkness, for where we are, God is. His kingdom can break into our world come what may, if we like sheep do not go astray.
