The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Making me lie down in green pastures; leading me beside still waters; restoring my soul. Leading me in right paths for the Lord’s sake. Psalm 23 (Photo by Brian Williams)
It's almost impossible to say anything new about Psalm 23. The final line of the Psalm that says, "goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" might be better translated (as Eugene Peterson does in The Message translation) "goodness and mercy shall track me down.”
Yet, while reading it, I was reminded of a story the author Anne Lamott wrote about in her book Traveling Mercies. Lamott recounts in this book a time of her life that was particularly hard--a time of struggle with addictions. Here's the longer passage from the Lamott book: “After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there–of course, there wasn’t. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. Finally, I fell asleep, and in the morning, he was gone. This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition, born of fear and self-loathing and booze. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left. After going to church that weekend, I began to cry and left before the Benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said ‘I quit.’ I took a long deep breath and said out loud, ‘All right. You can come in.’
I pray that goodness and mercy will track you down—wherever you may find yourself. May you find a place to rest, restore, renew.