If The Lord is My Shepherd - Introduction

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Psalms 23:1‭-‬6 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.23.1-6.NIVUK My favourite journey when I was a missionary was one I was only too happy to do alone. It lasted for five hours, in a rickety old bus with no air conditioning. As it groaned and strained its way up mountainsides, sometimes you'd wonder if you'd need to get out and push it. But miraculously, I never did. The journey was between the cities of Brasov and Pitesti. Nowadays it might be a nice European highway. When I was there, towards the end of the last decade, it was a windy road across the Carpathian alps. Between the village of Bran, where Dracula's Castle is situated, and Campulung de Arges, I was treated to a stunning mountain view that looked like it hadn't changed for hundreds of years. Small villages where people made their living through farming their gardens, shepherds guiding their flocks to safe pasture, the sights and smells of natural products... Apart from the groaning and whining bus engine and the occasional Romanian gypsy music from the driver's cabin, it was one of the most peaceful, relaxing journeys I ever made. It was hastily de-romanticised one day, though, when a shepherd caught the bus. He looked like the elements were his beauty regime. He carried a wooden staff. And he was wearing the archetypal shepherd's garb: a big leather jacket with wool all over it. He looked like an ageing biker who had rolled his jacket in glue and ran through a cloud. You see, he wasn't just pasturing his sheep. No, he was wearing them too. This psalm is one of the most well-known and most quoted sections of Scripture. It appears everywhere: on posters, computer backgrounds, gangster and horror movies and in music. Yet behind the apparent romance of this psalm lies a darkness. We are not at peace in the absence of difficulty but at peace in the presence of difficulty. Moreover, the whole psalm is a description of all that we receive when the Lord is our shepherd. The absence of these blessings gives us an indication that there is a part of our life where the Lord is not our shepherd. When that is the case, then God is not denying us these blessings. No, we are depriving ourselves of them. This is a psalm that is so well known and yet easily misunderstood, because it can only be correctly understood in its cultural and historical context. And that is what we are going to try and do. The psalm begins with two striking phrases: The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. So do you? Do you lack anything? I don't mean, "Do you have everything you could ever want?" That is not what David is talking about here. He is talking about the feeling of lack. He is talking about the feeling of inadequacy. He is talking about the feeling of insufficiency. This is the feeling you have when one of life's challenges lies before you and you don't feel like you have the resources to cope. So let me ask you again: do you lack anything? Because feeling 'the lack', feeling inadequate, insufficient and not feeling like you have the resources to cope is a sure sign that the Lord is not your shepherd. It's a sure sign that you are alone. So do you lack anything? Four aspects of life are featured in this psalm. Our attitude towards these aspects is completely changed when the Lord is our shepherd. The first of these, as we'll see in my next blog, is PROVISION.