Psalm 23

They shout for joy, they also sing.

Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

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.

There's multiple authors in the Psalms, but we see David so much.

And I was reading Psalm 23:4, and it says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me in the presence of my enemies." And I remember when I was in church camp, we had to memorize this scripture to actually get points, to, like, get candy and chocolate and prizes.

And so I used to say this, um, psalm all the time to myself as a kid.

Jesus taught, "'Let your light so shine before men "'that they may see your good works "'and glorify your Father who is in heaven.'" In all the story of Scripture, God has never forgotten the vulnerable.

A metaphor of God as shepherd is present in Psalm 23, verse 1.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Obviously, God is not actually in the sheepfold with actual sheep, but this metaphor, which is, if you remember in English class, a comparison, not using like or as, portrays God as a caring, guiding protector and his followers as dependent, vulnerable sheep.

We don't need to be scared of, uh, you know, whatever the Illuminati, the globalists or whatever we don't need to, uh, uh, fear anything that is coming.

I had my powerful encounter memorizing, relearning, re-memorizing Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd.

I told that story.

And also I'm just laying down some context here because it's needed to understand my experience.

Right.

So this is trying to kind of build back to the, the experience of being there here for me.

And, um, Psalm 23 was a huge, huge, I don't know, a focus point for me recently, and specifically the bit of, even when I must walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you're with me, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

Like...

Psalm 23 says he restores my soul.

Not he distracts my soul.

Not he numbs my soul.

The answer is not salt.

Second, bring the need to the source.

Open Psalm 23.

Open Psalm 147.

I am grateful to have my son, a psychologist, and his wife, a trauma-informed therapist, leading our care team.

Our three-day rest and restoration retreats inspired by Psalm 23 provide a space for the healing journey.

Psalm 23, you remember David wrote this during a very difficult time in his life.

He said, the Lord's my shepherd, I shall not want.

He gives me rest, green pastures, still waters, but he restores my soul.

What connects these texts is the relationship between humans and the world of animals and nature.

While Matthew's passage is not really about that, Similarly, the section on the eight Beatitudes is grouped with the anchor novel The Outsiders, and Psalm 23 is tied with the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Even if we were to set aside the problem of reading these passages in the context of other secular works, we still have the problem of unorthodox bias.

As Mackin points out, the reading of the Bible is very difficult to separate from propaganda about the Bible.

Perhaps the sharpest criticism that Macken offers is how reading the ethical portions apart from the redemptive core makes the Bible say the direct opposite of what it really says.

The example he uses is non-Christian children reciting the Lord's Prayer as though our Father belongs to man as man.

The Texas requirement does something similar in having children read Psalm 23.

Reciting words claiming the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want is providing false hope for those who don't know Jesus as the good shepherd.

And for me, that looks like starting the day off with prayer.

Even as soon as I wake up, I am typically rehearsing Psalm 23 or the Lord's Prayer.

Or sometimes it's a song.

But literally setting my mind from the morning to fill my thought world and my mind and my emotions with His truth.