The Shepherd Who Walks Me Through the Dark Valley

A song of David, from Psalm 23

The Lord is my Shepherd.
And because he is mine,
there is nothing I truly need
that he will not give me.

Do you remember this song?
David made it up long before,
when he was a boy on the Bethlehem hills,
keeping his father's sheep.
But a song this good does not stay
with one boy on one hill.
Mothers taught it to their children,
and those children taught it to theirs,
until the whole family of God
knew it by heart.
It is the song God's people pray in the dark.
And today it becomes your song too.

A shepherd knows where the green grass grows.
He leads me there and says,
Lie down. Rest now.
He walks me to the still water,
the kind that lies calm and clear,
the kind you are not afraid to drink from.
And something tired inside me
goes soft again.

He puts my heart back
the right way round
when it has gone all crooked with worry.
He shows me the good path,
and he walks it first,
so I only have to follow.

But you and I both know
that not every path is sunny.

Sometimes the way goes down.
Down into the valley,
where the light grows thin
and the shadows lean close,
and a child might think:
I am all alone here.
And it is dark.
And something is wrong.

In the very middle of the song
come the words the family
holds on to hardest:

Even there.
Even in the dark valley,
I will not be afraid.
Because you are with me.

You.
A Shepherd, close enough to touch.
His rod to drive the wolves away.
His staff to hook me back when I wander.
Right there in the dark, beside me.

And then, right in the valley,
he spreads a table.
He lays out a feast
while the trouble is still watching,
and he pours so much oil on my head
that my cup tips
and spills
and keeps on spilling.

This is a glad God.
This is a God who loves
to fill you all the way up
in the very place
you were most afraid.

Surely, David sings,
goodness and mercy
will run after me
all the days of my life.
And I will live
in the house of the Lord
forever.

Forever at home with him,
and never sent away.

There was one thing David could not yet see,
though he felt it aching
under every word.

A shepherd keeps his sheep.
But a greater Shepherd was coming,
one who would do more than keep them.
He would give his own life for them.
He would walk down
into the darkest valley of all,
the one no one walks back out of,
and he would lay himself down there,
so that not one of his little lambs
would be lost in the dark.

His name is Jesus.
The Good Shepherd.

David did not know his name yet.
He only knew the love.
But you know the name.
So when your own way goes down
and the shadows lean close,
sing the family song into the dark:
I will not be afraid.
You are with me.
The Good Shepherd has walked this valley himself,
and he will walk it beside you,
all the way to the table he has set.