New Thoughts on Psalm 23

I love when something old and familiar suddenly becomes new and alive. I’ve heard, like most people, Psalm 23 many, many times, but I recently encountered an observation that breathed new life into the text for me. When David wrote Psalm 23, he wrote from his personal experience as a shepherd. At the beginning, he relates the actions of the Shepherd in third person: He leads me, He refreshes me, and He guides me. But a shift takes place as the Shepherd and the sheep descend into the valley with the sounds and smells of death lingering darkly around them. Suddenly, David, the sheep, begins to refer to the shepherd as if He is right there, using the second person pronouns: You are with me and You comfort me. This little sheep comes to know and needs the Presence of his Good Shepherd in a different way than he did in the pastures or while resting by the quiet waters. He addresses his Shepherd directly, perhaps in confidence or perhaps in desperation. Either way, the shift in his wording remains throughout the rest of the psalm, and as the ending suggests, reframes his perspective for the rest of his life. Some truths change us forever. 

For most of my life I have talked about and related to God as David did at the beginning of the Psalm, in all sincerity but with a touch of distance. The last few years I have walked on the darkest paths I have ever traveled. Trevor’s battle with mental illness first manifested as debilitating panic attacks in late 2019. As I helplessly kneeled next to my husband while he writhed on our bedroom floor, I felt we were walking through a valley like David described. It was hard to recognize God’s Presence in those moments of crisis. Honestly it was hard to do anything but survive from one moment to the next. Occasionally, in between the waves of panic attacks Trevor often endured for hours at a time, I would be able to say, like the little sheep, “You are with me. You comfort me” and I meant it and felt it. But sometimes I would say those words simply because, like Peter responding to Jesus, “Where else would I go? You hold the words of life.” I said it in empty desperation with nowhere else to turn, knowing deep down that Jesus was the only place to go. And no matter how I felt about it, either way, the truth was still the same. He was with me. He is with me. Some truths change us forever.