by Pat Nordman

I dearly love Psalm 23. We all do. But as I get older I realize the beauty and the pull of this gem. One of the exegetists of this Psalm suggests that everything that brings relief from the ordinary pressures of daily life and revives our drooping spirits we may regard as "green pastures and still waters." When I need a quick respite from the moment, I visualize a stream and I'm standing on the shore. The day is cool and it is quiet. It's amazing the peace I feel from just a few seconds of this picture in my mind. Another writer points out that the pastures of God are always fresh and green because they are sheltered. Around our life is God's protecting hedge of His love and His law. What a wonderful idea this is when we are tempted to set fire to God's hedge with our own ideas of what is right for us.

Another writer suggest that life is a feast: "Thou preparest a table for me." I will tell you how life looks to me. 1. I am--personal existence is mine. I have a being, the integrity, the sanctity of which even God respects, the boundaries of which even my Maker does not trench upon. 2. The world is mine. The heavens and the earth are mine. 3. Then there is the world of ideas, which come greeting you like troops of angels, from the books of gifted souls, from the mystic recesses of your own heart. 4. Friendship has been yours. The joy of serving, the joy of charity, the joy of dispensing sympathy, of bearing burdens which are not your own. 5. The happiness and ennoblement of benefitting the world. Anonymous.

If there is one bit of writing I would recommend for daily study it is this psalm. Yes, I know -- we memorized it as a child. Perhaps that is why we need to dust it off now and find out what it really means when we are in a valley and see only dust. In the meantime, let's remember that music, friendship, books, religious privileges, freedom, and love: these all are our pastures and still waters -- and great gifts from our Good Shepherd.

Pat Nordman