PRAISE & PRAYER PROMPT ••• I wish Psalm 23 wasn’t synonymous with funerals.
If we can forget about that affiliation for just a bit, let’s look at it from an everyday perspective.
We’ll spend a few days on it and break it apart in chunks, starting with verses 1-3, which say, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
David, who wrote the Psalm, was well-acquainted with the responsibilities of being a shepherd.
He knew the shepherd’s resume would include leading and guiding the sheep, taking them to pasture, and leading them to water.
He knew that a good shepherd would protect his flock.
Flip forward to the book of John 10:11, where Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
David’s allegory is reflective of what Jesus does for us, not just when we are standing in a receiving line at a funeral, but in everyday life.
He offers us daily care and provides for us, just as He said in Matthew 6:25-34 when He said that the sparrows and the lilies are cared for by God.
Also, He is the Living Water to sustain us.
That very Living Water that He offered the woman at the well in John 4:4-42 is the water that our souls crave.
And in verse 3b, where it says, “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
Our sinful natures don’t lend themselves to righteousness because nothing we do is good enough.
But Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
God has good assignments for us.
He has things for us to do to benefit the Kingdom of God.
And we are to walk that journey with Jesus daily so that through Him, anything good we do reflects Him for others to see.
Today, as you pray, thank God that Psalm 23 isn’t a passage we turn to just when we’re sad but it reminds us that our Good Shepherd leads us every day.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you stay with your Shepherd and not wander away from His good plan for you.
