A Truth to Steady Our Souls [Psalm 23]
One minute, we grab sugar and flour from the pantry to bake away our feelings. Hours later, we vow to detox from carbs for a month. At dinner, we laugh with our kids around the table. As we gather empty plates and load the dishwasher, we find ourselves yelling at everyone to just stop yelling.
Maybe some nights we think, “We’re okay. This is hard, but we’ll get through it.” The next, we’re huddled in the bathroom, hiding the sounds of our sobs and the sight of our tears.
At times we feel so sure that God is in control. Then a news headline hits, and we shake our head at him and ask, “Really? You sure you’ve got this?”
I feel the emotional whiplash of this season. I feel it in my body as my shoulders tense and my hands shake. Sometimes I ping-pong back and forth between tasks at home, unable to figure out how to get my body to do what my soul needs.
Maybe you know the feeling.
We’re fighting for joy while pressed down by grief. We’re asking for peace but daily wrestle with anxiety. We work for justice yet weep at its absence. We’re wanting to believe but often crippled with doubt. It’s exhausting.
But there is a truth that will steady our worn and fickle souls:
The LORD is my shepherd.
In his book on Psalm 23, Life Without Lack, Dallas Willard wrote, “A life without lack is a life in which one is completely satisfied and sustained no matter what happens. No matter what happens! It’s not merely a matter of gritting your teeth and hanging on. It is a matter of real provisions directly from God to you.”
When we feel uncertain, angry, or grieved, we can hang onto the truth of who our God is as if our life depended on it—and, in fact, our life does depend on it. Thankfully, he is absolutely dependable.
If the LORD is our shepherd, as the psalmist said, we have everything we need. We are cared for, loved, watched over, provided for. It doesn’t mean we’ll never walk through the valley of the shadow of death. But it does mean we don’t have to fear along the way. We’re not wandering aimlessly in that valley, lost and scrambling through the darkness. No. We’re led through it.
So we continue to work and lament and speak out and love and pray. All the while, we can find sure footing not by forging our own path, but by following the Shepherd.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). Thanks be to God.
