One of my favorite Bible passages is Psalm 23. Here it is from the King James version:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the stillwaters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
I had always enjoyed that passage, but I grew to love it after a visit to the Holy Land. I had originally viewed the 23rd Psalm as a reflection of God’s abundant love. I imagined God as a shepherd leading the flock of sheep to a beautiful pasture full of knee-high deep-green grass. At the edge of the pasture I imagined a pretty little pond with crystal clear water. I had always imagined the Shepherd leading the sheep to a beautiful place – of self-sufficiency. The sheep can stand and graze in the grass that surrounds them and anytime they get thirsty they can walk over and get a drink. Basically, the sheep rely on the Shepherd to get them to the right place and then there is a sense of, “Thanks, we’ll take it from here!”
When I made my first trip to the Holy Land, I encountered many areas that brought the stories of the Bible to life. One such place was the area where the psalmist wrote the 23rd Psalm. Far from being a rich fertile pastureland – it was dry and rocky. There was almost no grass to be seen as far as the eye could see. All of a sudden the 23rd Psalm was transformed. God’s love isn’t found in the over-abundance and self-sufficiency I can sometimes desire in life, but instead is found in the constancy of His presence. My relationship with God grows stronger the more I depend upon God rather than wanting to handle life on my own. In the desert in the southern part of Israel, shepherds still lead their flocks. They have to; without the shepherd, the sheep would not find the few and far between sprigs of grass that exist. Because the ground of that region is so dry, it is not able to absorb the rainstorms that will develop quickly. Flooding is common in the regions after those storms. Sheep need a shepherd to guide them to safe pools of water that won’t sweep them away in a flood.
While we might work to become more and more self-sufficient in our personal and professional lives, it was never intended for our spiritual lives. We were meant to be dependent upon God.
However, just as the message of the 23rd Psalm isn’t that the best life is to be knee-deep in everything we need in life, the message is also not that God will be a Shepherd that leads us to the most desolate places. The message of the 23rd Psalm is that when we find ourselves in the bleakest valley, where the shadow of death is cast before us and we can’t find a way to survive – we can trust that there is always a Shepherd to guide us to those things we need to sustain our souls and nourish our lives.
It is transformative to me to know that we have a God that loves us so much as to live with us in our darkest moments. I will take the faithfulness of God over my own self-sufficiency any day! That is a story that continually changes my life.
Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15
Rev. Wendy Lambert, Senior Executive Pastor
