Through the Valley

Psalm 23 is the most familiar passage in the Bible for many Americans, read at bedsides and gravesides and printed on cards. Familiarity is a gift and a danger. Today, try to read it as if for the first time, and notice what it actually says.

The psalm has a geography. It begins in green pastures beside quiet waters, where the shepherd makes the sheep lie down and restores the soul. It moves onto paths of righteousness, which the shepherd chooses for the sake of his own name. Then, without warning, it enters the darkest valley. The Hebrew phrase is strong. It is the valley of the shadow of death, the ravine where the light does not reach and where predators wait.

Two things about that valley matter enormously. The first is that the path leads through it, not around it. The same shepherd who chose the green pastures chose this route. The sheep did not wander into the valley by mistake. The way to the house of the LORD in verse 6 runs through the dark in verse 4. There is no version of following the shepherd that skips it.

The second is that the grammar changes. In verses 1 through 3 David speaks about God: he makes me, he leads me, he refreshes me. In verse 4, in the valley, he speaks to God. You are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me. The valley is where the shepherd stops being a subject of description and becomes a person addressed. Many believers can testify that their closest moments with God came not in the pasture but in the dark.

Then verse 5 does something strange. It sets a table in the presence of enemies. The threat is still there, in view, and God is pouring oil on David's head and filling his cup anyway. That is the Christian life in one image. Not the absence of enemies but a feast in front of them.

And verse 6 ends with goodness and love following, or more accurately pursuing, David all the days of his life, until he dwells in the house of the LORD forever. The chase is not from the predators. It is from mercy.

The turn toward life today is about the valley you are in or approaching. You will not get around it. But you can change the grammar. Stop talking about God and start talking to him. You are with me. Say it in the dark. He is.