Fearlessness – Psalm 23

A text – Psalm 23

¹ The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
³ he restores my soul.He leads me in right pathsfor his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley,I fear no evil, for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

A reflection:

The 23^rd Psalm. Parts of it are familiar to a great many English-speaking persons the world over from funerals they have attended and also funerals and burials in movies and on TV – especially the line, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” (the King James version).  This is a psalm of confidence, even when we are near enough to touch death.

So much has been written about this psalm that it is difficult to know what approach to choose this week to reflect on it. So I’ll just land on the image that struck me today as I prepared this post: “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The rod was used to fend off predators, and the staff or crook was used to keep the sheep in line and not wandering off.

I am thinking of all the ways I can get off the path: accidentally, willingly, by sidestepping one calamity and stepping into a different one. I was contemplating cataract surgery when a friend showed me her cataract recovery worksheet for eye drops (one side for her right eye, completed first, the other for her left), with boxes to check for each kind of post-op drops and a lag time between the types of drops. I looked at her and I said, “I think I’m going to need a keeper.” She laughed heartily, thinking I was kidding. I wasn’t. The older I get, the more reminders I have to set for myself to move competently from one day to the next. I may be turning into a sheep in need of someone with a shepherd’s crook.

God not only provides a shepherd for the sheep in this psalm. God also provides the right kind of water and feed and protective weapons and abundance of blessings. Not only are they cared for with what they need, they do not even have to get anxious about anything. We sometimes suffer from lack of something, but we often suffer more from fear of lacking something. One commentator on this psalm asked, “What if we actually lived our daily lives certain that we did not have to be afraid? What would that free us up for, knowing we need not spend energy on fear?” I’m going to think about that this weekend. What would fearlessness free us up for?

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for being our provider and protector. Help us to remember that you are always with us and that we need not spend time being afraid. Help us to stretch our imaginations to wonder what more we could do with our lives because you are with us. Amen.