Healing Rays of Righteousness

Read Psalm 23

For my times of suffering, I have found much comfort and encouragement in Psalm 23, and as a chaplain have shared this psalm with many others in their times of suffering.  I think this psalm portrays an excellent summary of the Christian perspective for all of life, including suffering.

Psalm 23 is probably the best-known and most quoted passage from the Bible.  Even those who seldom read the Bible can quote at least a line or two from it, because they’ve heard it so often spoken at funerals. It is appropriately used there and is most often a comforting passage to mourners. But if you think of Psalm 23 as being only an appropriate funeral text, you can miss the fact that this Psalm is mostly about living, not dying.  In fact, only one verse references death, while the other five verses speak about good, abundant living.

Although many of us are used to hearing the King James version of verse 4 as “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …,” the underlying Hebrew words can also mean simply “place of deep darkness.”  And so, the New International version, which I prefer, reads “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, (of hurt, pain, suffering and loss) I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and staff they comfort me.”

Psalm 23:4 candidly faces the inevitable experience of suffering and fear.  It does not say “If I walk” but it says “Even though I walk through the darkest valley ….”  The comforting power of Psalm 23 comes from its use of these two key words: “though” and “through” – the same word except for the single letter “r.”  That one little letter makes all the difference in the world.  It is the letter that turns your “though” into a “through.”  Valleys are not resting places, but passageways.

This then is a statement about God’s shepherding me during the difficult and troubling stretches of life.  And the reason I’m not overwhelmed by fear is because God the Shepherd is with me and his rod and staff are at the ready to protect and guide me.  His presence comforts and reassures me in the midst of threatening darkness.    

 “Though” none of us journey through life without walking the valley of deep darkness, the psalmist makes it plain that God does not intend for us to stay there forever.  The valley is something one goes “through.”  We can walk through our problems.  We can walk through our sorrows.  We can walk through our pain.  We can walk through our screw-ups and life-threatening situation without fear of evil, because the Lord, our Shepherd, journeys through with us; and his rod and staff are at the ready to protect and rescue us, if and when needed.

The Psalmist concludes, “Surely your goodness and love shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

And so, this Psalm becomes a strong statement of faith, a song of confidence in God.  Whether our dark valleys are times of painful sufferings or the actual passage through death itself, we believe God is not only with us but is more than equal to whatever threats to our spiritual well-being may lurk within the dark shadows.

Psalm 23, along with the whole book of Psalms, is about having confidence in God.  The Psalms recount all sorts of human troubles, despair and fears, but like a compass needle that keeps swinging back to the north, they keep coming back to the confidence we can have in knowing that God is with us in the darkness.  And so, when Psalm 23 talks about God’s rod and staff being a source of comfort in the frightening valleys of life, it is stating the main point of the entire book of Psalms.

Psalm 139 can be read as evidence that God has journeyed through the dark valley ahead of us.  The author that Psalm says; “Where can I go from your spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make by bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”  (Psalm 139:7-12).

So says Peter in his letter to the suffering followers of Jesus in his day; “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”  (1 Peter 1:6-7).