Shook my world

I go to a bible study, and one of my first weeks there the leader broke down Psalm 23. In short, it shook my world, as I knew it then. It helps to read it in the amplified Bible. “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Shepherds lead the sheep, guide them, protect them, the sheep are nothing without the shepherd. “I shall not lack”. This continues with the idea that the shepherds provide everything for the sheep and the sheep lack nothing. “He makes me lie down in green pastures”. He’s not making you lie down in half dead pastures; he’s making you lie down in the BEST!!! Pastures, lush green pastures. “He leads me beside the still waters”. I can only imagine it would be difficult to get a drink as a sheep from a fast moving stream with lots of rapids, so the Shepherd leads me by still, refreshing, thirst quenching waters.
“He refreshes my life”. This is simple enough; he brings new life and restores your life to where it should be. “He leads me in the paths of righteousness”. As I understand it, righteousness can be understood as “right standing with God”. He leads you to the path of right standing with God. Couldn’t get any better than that.
(My favorite part): “Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”. WOW!!!!! For this, use your imagination. Imagine someone throwing a punch at you and only the shadow crosses your face. The threat is there, but it’s still only a shadow. In short, no matter how close you come to getting punched in the face, it’s still only a shadow! “I will fear no evil for you are with me”. God is always with you, even if you are in the shadow of death. Even in your hardest of hard days, no matter where you are, HE is with you. “Your rod and staff, they comfort me”. Getting into some history Shepherds rods and staffs helped to protect and guide the sheep. If a sheep were to wander the shepherd would bring it back. If the sheep continued to wander, the shepherd would break the sheep’s legs. Then the shepherd would carry the sheep around his neck caring for and tending to the sheep until the legs had mended. After this, the sheep never strayed. God does the same thing for us. He allows us to go through trials so that we learn to lean and depend on him. God will provide everything we could ever need, if only we had faith and trust in Him.
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”. Despite being among foes, God still pours out his blessings to his faithful ones. “You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over”. Again, God blesses us and gives us everything we need and MORE! He fills our cup and lets it over flow. “Surely only goodness, mercy, and love shall follow me all the days of my life, and through the length of my days the house of the Lord shall be my dwelling place”. Again, just re-stating that God gives us everything! We may stray, we may wander, we may sin, but his love and his mercy are never ending. The house of the Lord shall be my dwelling place because where else could I get any better! God is it! He is all I need.

As I conclude this I hope this brought some different light to this very popular Psalm. It’s quite interesting that as I wrote about the valley of the shadow of death, Group 1 Crew’s “Forgive Me” was playing on my iTunes. Thank you LORD!

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