March 26: PSALM 23

Many of you who are reading immediately had a warm feeling when you saw the subject being Psalm 23. Psalm 23 is probably the best known and most familiar chapter in the Bible. People reading it for the first time are touched by it’s message. Very few funeral services are held without these familiar words.
My question to you is this: do you know how David arrived at this place of spiritual maturity to be able to pen such words? Surely these words were not written by a fair-haired shepherd boy untested by the pressures of life but by a man who had gone through terrible experiences and came out on the trusting side with God. How did he know that God was like a shepherd? How did he know that God would provide for him? How did he know that God would deliver him from his enemies? How did he know that there was an answer to the fear of death?
He knew because God delivered him from sin’s destructive hold and gave him a victory. David started well. His father Jesse taught him about responsibility to God. During his youth David was faithful to God. But like so many, when he left home and became an adult, his faith was not as strong. He lusted after another man’s wife, had her husband killed, watched the child of his sinful adultery die, watched another son rebel and try to steal the throne from him and then grieved uncontrollably when the son was murdered.
Only then did he face up to his sin and come to grips with how he wasted his life. If you want to read his prayers of confession and repentance, read Psalms 32 and 51.
No, Psalm 23 is not just a nice thought; it is more than spiritual baby food. It is the testimony of one who tried the world’s offerings and found them lacking and gave his life totally to God and found nothing lacking. Read it closely, dear reader, read it closely.

“Thank you, Good Shepherd, for stooping low and picking up the wounded
and broken sheep. When you have set us on the right path again, keep us
there with loving discipline. Amen”