“Are you a sheep who knows the shepherd?” by David Gibson

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)

“Psalm 23 has become a funeral psalm. But, in fact, it is really a psalm about life. Only one verse out of six speaks about death. The imagery of the psalm is dominated with food, water, rest, security; it’s about going to a banquet where you have perfumed oil poured on your head and you have a cup of wine in your hand, where you have to say to the host, “No, stop, it’s overflowing!”

Psalm 23 is about abundant life. It is more about the happiness of living than the sadness of dying, and all of the happiness is bound up with being able to say that this Lord who is a shepherd is also my shepherd.

There is a famous story about a young shepherd boy in the Scottish Highlands in centuries past. His parents died prematurely, leaving the boy in the care of his grandfather, a shepherd.

The grandson was raised to be a shepherd too, but he was uneducated. He never went to school and he was unable to read.

His grandfather taught him the first five words of Psalm 23 by taking the boy’s left hand and, as he said each word, pointing to a finger. Soon the boy could say the words himself, holding one finger and then the next as he did so: “The—LORD—is—my—shepherd.”

On one occasion when the boy was out in the hills tending the sheep, a terrible blizzard swept in, engulfing the mountains, and the boy and the sheep did not return home.

His grandfather set out to find him, but the brutal winds and blinding snow made that impossible. He knew he would soon lose all sense of direction and so, fearful and heartsore, he returned to spend a long and restless night in his chair.

When at last he was able to search the hills, tragically, he found his grandson frozen to death in the snow. But as he stooped to lift the child, he noticed that the boy’s hands were clasped in a peculiar way.

His right hand firmly gripped the fourth finger of his left hand: “The LORD is my shepherd.”

My calling as a pastor is always to ask people where they are with this shepherd. The members of my congregation are asked all the time by others about their status in relation to something or someone: their relationship status? their employment status?

But the pastor’s job is to ask about flock status: Are you a sheep who knows the shepherd?

If you can say that he is your shepherd, then I want to show you in what follows that you have everything you will ever need.”

–David Gibson, The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 21-23.