Day 6: Rest in the Shepherd
Three times last week, I woke up at strange times. My eyes would flash open, and anxiety pressed on my chest while my mind whirled through worries like a carousel gone berserk. Every time, I recited Psalm 23.
Why Psalm 23? Well, it’s one of the only Bible verses I can recall at strange hours. Why is that? I inadvertently memorized it in the 1980s when television mini-series were the thing. My mom was a Civil War nut and would pop in the VHS to record anything to do with it, including John Jakes’ North and South. I’m sure you’ve seen it, so I’m sure you recall that somewhere in the 18+ hours of footage there’s a funeral scene where Psalm 23 is recited. To be clear, it was less about the scripture and more about the unrequited love between Orry and Madeline that kept me watching BUT …
God will have his way.
Psalm 23 continues to stick.
Which is why you should memorize stuff when you’re young.
I digress.
All week, we’ve been clarifying what we need a break from and why. Today is about what to do with the answer.
The common interpretation of rest is it’s something we do – to cease, refresh, recover – but in the Bible, rest begins as a noun. Before we “do” rest, we must enter into rest and that takes leading. Then, we must receive the rest we find, and that takes convincing.
This is where Psalm 23 comes in – the go-to comfort psalm where The Lord is my shepherd and because he’s my shepherd, I shall not be in want. The more I recited the verses over this past week, the more I got a sense of something that’s eluded me since the 80s.
Though I might recite this psalm to seek comfort and though I might come away from it with comfort, this psalm is not about comfort. It’s about The Shepherd Who Is Our Rest.
Which brings us to a little gift! I’ll be sending all my blog subscribers a reading of Psalm 23 for you to download. It’s not a Bible study so much as my journey of turning the verses over in my mind – the places I paused and the questions I asked. Scripture is rich, but we don’t know how rich it is when we take someone else’s word for it. My hope is you will use this reading to seek, understand, and apply Psalm 23 in your pursuit of rest this weekend.
If you haven’t already, SIGN UP BY 11:59PM TONIGHT and the download will be waiting for you in your inbox when you wake up tomorrow morning.
Have a great weekend! I’ll be back here on Monday to pick up where we left off.
