Catalog No. 1187
December 6th, 1998
I want to begin by telling you a story of a journey I once took. This journey was an epic cross-country trip. My family of seven piled into our large red van on our big move from California to South Carolina. I was leaving a church family in which I had grown up spiritually, from a wet-behind-the-ears college student to becoming that church's college pastor for six years. The Lord was calling me and mine to follow him on a journey, from one culture to another, from comfortable California to the backwoods of South Carolina.
At first the journey was very exciting. We traveled fourteen hours the first day from the Bay Area to Flagstaff, Arizona. The next day we visited the Grand Canyon at sunset. Then we drove to see a Hopi Indian village atop a towering mesa in north eastern Arizona. When we got to Texas, my parents joined us as we toured the Followwill family farm where my father grew up. I had the joy of sharing my family roots with my children, who had never been to Texas. It was a blessing to return to my much- loved and familiar boyhood haunts.
Leaving Texas, we drove eastward into northern Louisiana. We were headed for our big splurge on the trip, a one-night stay in an old Southern plantation mansion. But we took a short cut through the top of Louisiana that ended up taking hours longer than we had anticipated. We were far off the interstate, and driving through numerous small parishes. With every mile we were plunging deeper into the deep South. We passed by many tiny country churches, with long, strange names like "Mount Zion Holiness Church of God of Prophecy," or "Christ the King Primitive Freewill Missionary Baptist Church." I had left a huge, well- established and famous church, Peninsula Bible Church, and now I was headed into a foreign land. As the day wore on, and the shadows lengthened, my soul darkened. My sense of displacement was overwhelming. I looked at my wife Blythe a couple of times, and said, "What have we done?! What kind of place are we moving to?"
Then we found we were low on gas in a very rural area, with no gas stations in sight. We barely knew where we were, we were supposed to have arrived three hours ago, and I was stressing out. I have never felt more displaced and disoriented in my life. We finally found some gas, and arrived at the plantation at 6:45 in the evening, tired and stressed. We hadn't eaten for hours.
But right after our van pulled to a halt, the doors of that plantation opened wide and a family poured out to welcome us. When I called ahead to make reservations, and the owner discovered we had five children, she told me she would invite her grandchildren over. Their family welcomed my family like long- lost relatives. Soon the children were swimming together in the pool. We were served an absolute feast of Southern delicacies. It was one of the best and most timely meals of my life.
The next morning, when it was time to settle the bill, I got a note from the owner saying they wanted to give the evening's stay to us as a gift--an over $300 gift. We were the first guests in the history of the house to receive such a gift. I was overwhelmed by the blessing. I had felt so displaced, but our Lord, through these dear people, had welcomed us to a home. We were the honored and welcomed guests, blessed to overflowing. We had gone on a journey led by our Lord, and he led us to a perfect home. David traces a similar journey in Psalm 23.
I am convinced that one of the most powerful aids the Bible gives us for living in a fallen world is forceful biblical imagery that focuses our minds and comforts our hearts. "The Lord is my shepherd" is just such an image. The ancient Jews loved this shepherd image as well. We are told in the Babylonian Talmud that some of the rabbis would conclude their Passover service by singing "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." It seems that this psalm has had the power to transfix our imaginations for centuries.
So, let's turn to this great poem. The first phrase gives us our mental picture for the Lord himself: "Yahweh is my shepherd." The personal name for God, Yahweh, is a term rooted in the Hebrew verb "to be," or "haya." This name tells us two essential things about God's character: He IS, and he is PRESENT. Thus, to better capture what this divine name means here, we could translate it literally as, "I AM HERE." Thus, this first phrase is literally, "I AM HERE is my shepherd." This God is not distant. He is not elsewhere and otherwise engaged in bigger things. My Lord who is here, he is my shepherd.
The little word "my" is of greatest significance. The text does not say, "The Lord is a shepherd," or "The Lord is Israel's shepherd," or even, "The Lord is the one and only true shepherd," all of which are theologically true statements. The text says, "The Lord is MY shepherd." So much of true Christian faith has to do with the personal pronouns. Doubting Thomas, after poking his fingers in Jesus' wounds, finally believed in the resurrected Christ as "MY Lord and MY God" (John 20:28). Here in this first line of Psalm 23, David is speaking of an intimate one-to-one relationship with God, where God calls David "MY sheep" and David confidently and even a bit proudly calls the Lord "MY shepherd."
Now what are some of the critical attributes of this shepherd? While there are many, I want to highlight five. First, he owns the sheep. It is easy to forget that colossal fact. In the days when David was a shepherd, shepherds led their sheep from the front of the flock. Each morning, the shepherd would go to the fold where all the sheep from the community would be gathered and sound out his unique guttural noise, calling his sheep to himself to follow him where he was going that day. Upon hearing that distinctive sound, the sheep would get up from the mass of collected wool and follow their shepherd, because he owned them and they knew him.
Second, this shepherd always knows where he is going. He is not a wanderer, aimlessly casting about for an oasis. Nor is he a tour guide that stops along the way to give the destination of the day's journey. He knows where he is going, and he is moving in that direction. All Jesus said to his disciples was, "follow Me." That was his distinctive shepherd call to them. Details were scarce; maps were unavailable. Third, this shepherd calls his sheep by name. Each individual in the flock is known well, and is an integral member of the flock, so much so that he is immediately missed if he strays, even when he is one out of a hundred. Fourth, everything this shepherd does is for the good of the sheep. His all-consuming concern is for them, not for himself, or for the suffering he may endure along the journey. Finally, this shepherd never ever leaves the sheep during the entire journey, because he knows where he is going, and he will lead them to their final destination. The sheep will get home.
So, "The Lord is My shepherd, I shall not lack." The traditional translation is "I shall not want," but almost everyone seems to be on an endless cycle from one "want" to the next. It is not that "I shall not want," because my selfish and never-satisfied flesh constantly wants...and wants...and wants. Eugene Peterson translates this phrase as, "I don't need a thing." I translate it as simply, "The Lord is my shepherd, and he is enough."
When I discovered what this verse meant, my heart leaped inside me. This has been the fundamental issue in my heart over the past ten years. During that time, I have met with small groups of young men to study together the book of Romans. At the beginning of each year, I ask them to take a week and pray about one particular area of their character, one thing that God needs to change in them, that they want the group to pray for over the course of the year. Several years ago, my specific prayer was that "the Lord will be enough for me," that my relationship with him would satisfy me so that I wouldn't be casting about for approval or recognition for what I do. This is one thing I loved about Ray Stedman. The Lord was enough for him. Ray never sought the spotlight, he never pursued money or glory. I wanted and still want that to be true of me as well, so I asked the men to pray in that direction. We prayed all year, and I struggled all year, but my Lord began answering this prayer that summer, when I studied this word of quiet revolution, "The Lord is my shepherd, and he is enough."
This is a great gut-check question to ask: "Is the Lord enough for me?" John D. Rockefeller, the billionaire oil man, once was asked, "How much money is enough?" His reply was, "Just one more dollar." He was never going to be satisfied; the word "enough" must have eluded him all his days. But for us, ask yourself, "Is the Lord enough for me...if I should have to declare bankruptcy?" "Is the Lord enough for me...if I don't get that new promotion or title?" "Is the Lord enough for me...if my husband or wife leaves me, or if they die suddenly?" "Is the Lord enough for me...if I remain single all my life?" "Is the Lord enough for me...if I am never a success by worldly standards?"
But to all those questions, to the basic question, "Is the Lord enough for me?" David looks us squarely in the eye and exclaims, "Yes! My Lord is enough!" But I might say, "Come on, David, is he really enough to calm my constant restlessness? Is he enough in all my brokenness? Is he enough in my constant straying? Is he enough in my dark valleys, or when enemies surround me? Is he enough in my unknown future? Is he, and he alone, enough?" Let's see.
To describe how the Lord is enough, David, the one-time shepherd, is going to humbly assume the position of the sheep in this poem, a sheep following his shepherd on a journey through the wilderness. Many of the ancient rabbinical scholars compared this entire psalm to the journey of Israel through the wilderness under Moses. I believe David is giving us here not only the powerful image of his shepherd, but the picture of a journey with that shepherd. The Hebrew mind envisioned life with God as a long journey with him, one on which our mistakes and stumblings occur regularly, but God is always there to pick us up and lead us back to himself. David is here envisioning a journey with his shepherd, whom David has found to be enough.
The first stage of that journey is to "pastures of green grass," where "He makes me to lie down." The verb phrase, "makes me lie down," implies that the shepherd is having to exert quiet pressure to make the sheep lie down in the pasture. It seems that all too often the sheep is craning its neck forward, not wanting to rest and settle in the green pasture, but to see the future, to know where it is finally going. We in the modern world are a deeply restless people. We are so busy running to get where we are going, and scared we will forget to take the kids where they need to be going. "Rest" seems like our impossible dream. We want to charge ahead, know the future and what it holds, to pursue one more goal, make one more appointment. Our shepherd, however, so often turns toward us and "makes us lie down in pastures of green grass," entirely for our own good. But I find I have such a hard time settling down: I crave rest and flee from it all at the same time. What a contradictory sheep I am! Thank God he "makes us lie down in pastures of green grass, and He leads us to waters of rest." Only he can rest us, which is exactly what Jesus literally said, in Matt 11:28, "Come to me all who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will rest you." Without him, we can never rest. So, in all my restlessness, he is enough. In fact, he is the only one who can rest me!
My Lord has many wonderful ways of teaching us to slow down and rest in him, but if we are continually busy and pushing the envelope, he may make us lie down in green pastures, in a very obvious way. For example, when we lived in Palo Alto and I worked at PBC, we lived the hard-driving Bay Area lifestyle of burning the candle at both ends, being heavily involved with our children at home, school and church, taking full advantage of the cornucopia of family entertainment opportunities, etc. We were living a hard-driving lifestyle with little inner rest of the soul. We lived on Bruce Drive in Palo Alto. Do you know what our new address was in South Carolina? It was Bruce Farm Road. We went from the driving lifestyle to the quieter lifestyle of a farm. Our front yard was a rolling hillside of green pastures. We even had a slow-flowing Southern creek bordering the back of the property. Good heavens, this sheep is so slow to the uptake that my Shepherd had to make this verse physically real in my life to teach me the spiritual truth of resting in him in all things! He will take us to great lengths to rest us, even if he has to cross a continent with us to do so.
So, he is enough to rest me in my restlessness and goad me back to himself. But is he enough in my brokenness? We are such a broken people. Many of our family structures are broken and fractured, leaving us in pieces. Some of us may be experiencing shattered relationships, either through a break-up, through divorce, or through abuse in the relationship. Others of us are ground up by this society: we somehow believe our bodies must look like the ghostly waifs who haunt the runways in fashion shows. I find the one thing that constantly leaves me broken is my own choice to be selfish. This immediately impacts my wife and children, causing wrinkles in our relationships that have to be ironed out almost daily. My selfishness is none other than my sin, and it is sin that makes us broken.
But, in the face of our raw brokenness, David simply says, "He restores my soul." The term "restore" here is rooted in the Hebrew verb "shuv," which means return, come back. When I am hurt and on my back because of my brokenness, he comes to carry me back to my home with him. This is why the little reading entitled Footprints has meant so much to so many: it was through all our most difficult stretches along our journey that we discover he carried us. Don't all our hearts respond to that? In the middle of our brokenness, when we have felt abandoned, where there seems to be no healer, where it seems that there is no help this side of heaven, we find our shepherd carrying us all the way. In all my brokenness, he does restore my soul, by carrying me back home to him.
So, he is enough to rest me in my restlessness, and he is enough to restore my soul by carrying me home. But how does he handle my constant straying?
David tells us, "He guides me in paths of righteousness, for His name's sake." By his gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) shepherd's crook, he guides us to find hidden, narrow paths of righteousness we could never find on our own. Left to ourselves, all we can do is wander and get lost: "all we like sheep have gone astray, each to his own way." There is no person alive who can find the small gate and the narrow path that leads to life unless there is a shepherd to guide along the way. Left to ourselves, we are lost.
But, this shepherd has a supreme motivation that assures us we will not be lost for long, that he will guide us along the narrow path: He guides us because his name as the Good Shepherd is on the line. Jesus said, in John 10:14-16, "I am the Good Shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd." We are his "other sheep," the believers from among the nations, and because our Good Shepherd named himself this name, his personal honor and dignity are on the line. Therefore, he must bring us also to his fold. When we get lost, as we so often do, he is the shepherd that seeks the lost sheep and brings the sheep home.
Thus, he is enough to rest me in my restlessness, to carry me home in one piece in spite of my brokenness, and he will guide me in paths of righteousness when I get lost, because his name depends on it. He is enough...so far.
Before we move on, let me draw the picture David has drawn for us thus far. David is writing as if he is a sheep, and what he sees is the back of his shepherd directly in front of him, leading him, making him lie down in pastures of green grass, guiding him along narrow and elusive paths. His focus is riveted on the back of the shepherd, and that has been enough so far along the journey.
But what happens when our lives are suddenly plunged into darkness? What happens when we are completely overwhelmed and cannot see a thing? David's next line tells us what happens "when I am walking in the valley of deep darkness."
I remember one late night when Blythe and I lived in Ireland. We were out walking down the country lanes of County Wicklow. The moon was shining, the night was crisp but not uncomfortable. It was very exciting walking under the moon with the woman I love. But I remember turning a corner, and seeing ahead a deep darkness. There was a tunnel of blackness where heavily leaved branches of ancient trees on both sides of the road arched over our path and totally blocked the light of the moon. Walking through it was like entering a pitch black tunnel. It made my skin crawl. It was the last place I wanted to go.
How often we all turn that same corner and find ourselves plunging into the deep darkness against our will! Life is full of deep darknesses. In these tight and suffocating places the walls begin to close in, the light is snuffed out, and our vision becomes dim. We can no longer see the back of our shepherd up ahead. Where is he? When we cannot see our shepherd at all because of the darkness, how can he possibly be enough?
In vs. 1-3, we reveled in our vision of the shepherd's back as he led us. But in vs. 4, in the valley of deep darkness, we find him in a much more personal way. We may not be able to see a thing, but his Presence is here. This Lord, "I AM HERE," Yahweh, is indeed here, in the deep darkness. With great artistry David tells us this through the use of pronouns: in vs. 1-3, the shepherd was always "HE": He makes me lie down...He leads me...He restores my soul...He guides me. But in the valley of deep darkness, in vs. 4, David makes a startling discovery: YOU...are with me! This is the dramatic center point of this poem, when the "He" of vs. 1-3 becomes the present, intensely personal "YOU"...with me, in vs. 4, 5. Think of the phrase, "You with me." Think of how often God used the promise "I will be with you" throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to encourage leaders facing a daunting challenge: with Moses in Exodus 3, Joshua in Joshua 1, and Gideon in Judges 6, for some examples. Speaking poetically then, the sheep that saw the shepherd's back in vs. 1-3 discovers the shepherd's face right beside him in the darkness of vs. 4. Is there any place more fitting for us to find this "You" than in the deep darkness?
Furthermore, the one who feels this Presence fears no evil. Something about it completely disarms any evil, comforting us greatly in the process.
This shepherd we discover in the deep darkness, this shepherd whom we know actually lives in us in the Spirit, is armed for battle. His rod and his staff comfort us, convincing us he has the necessary equipment to dispose of any evil or any enemy we might meet in the darkness. The comfort we receive here makes us quiet and content: we know we won't have to lift a finger in our own defense. He has all our flanks completely covered, so we can rest in silence. Moses said something similar to the escaping Israelites when Pharaoh pursued them to the Red Sea, in Exodus 14: "Fear not...The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent." The battle belongs to the Lord; the comfort belongs to us.
In this year that is coming to an end, 1998, I experienced what Oswald Chambers termed "the darkness of God's light." It was my dark night of the soul. Each person's suffering is entirely individual, but if someone three years ago had asked me to write down my personal nightmare scenario, it would have looked very similar to the church I found myself hired into in late 1997 and early 1998: a church where the eldership is trying to play God in people's lives, where leaders lead by fear and by control rather than by prayer and by faith. I could describe the situation further for you, but suffice it to say it was my personal nightmare scenario. Now think about yourself. What is your nightmare scenario, your valley of deep darkness? And where is your Lord when you find yourself there?
Let me share with you where he is on the worst day of your life. I can tell you the worst day of my life in the past year: Wednesday, January 14, 1998. It was the day of confrontation-- and I am not a man who rushes to confrontation. That day I would confront the leadership of the church, calling them to prayer and the study of Scripture together. They were not men willing to hear a corrective word. I was so stressed out, I awoke in a cold sweat around four o'clock that morning. I had to pray for two hours just to muster the strength to climb out of bed. When I went to work before the big showdown at high noon, I went into a classroom to sing praises. I prayed and praised God--the best antidote I know to fear and stress. Then I went back to my office at about 10:15.
At 10:30, I received a call from my father, Dorman Sr., who lived a thousand miles away in Colorado. He had no idea what I was facing. He told me my heavenly Father had awakened him that morning with something he wanted him to say to me. Then my Dad started to choke up on the phone. With his voice breaking, he said, "I want you to know you are the best son a father could have." I broke down in tears, my tears mingling with his. To me, it was the dark day, the day of battle, but my Father in heaven, speaking through my father on earth, had decreed it a day of blessing. He has never stood so close to me in my life than he did that day, the day I needed him most. This is what David says here: the HE up there becomes the intimate YOU right here in the middle of the valley of deep darkness.
So, the Lord is enough to rest me in my restlessness, to restore me in my brokenness, to guide me when I am lost, and I discover how close is his Presence in the deep darkness. Very well, but what about when I am surrounded by enemies?
David's life was a life of many battles. I have not made any attempt to argue that this powerful poem was written at any particular point in his life, since the text does not say so, and where the text is not explicit, we can only speculate. Regardless of when David wrote this, we know that he faced many enemies. He faced Goliath; he faced Saul's rage; he faced the Philistines many times; and he even had to face the forces of his own son Absalom in open rebellion against him. David was surrounded by enemies throughout his life.
But David reports a shocking discovery he made about his God, in vs. 5. David is forced to leave the shepherd imagery behind, because even that image is too limited to encapsulate this God he knows so well. There is a great lesson here: no metaphor for God is large enough to fully describe his enormity of character, his largeness of heart. David understands this, and moves from the shepherd of vs. 1-4, to introduce us to the loving host of vs. 5-6. Now as we get to know this host, we discover he is none other than the shepherd we have followed all along, only now he is serving us a banquet within his own home.
In verse 5, David is beset by enemies. But who are our enemies today? Paul tells us from his own experience that our enemies will sometimes "press us from within and without." From "within" we may be attacked by various anxieties and fears, by an inner voice of self-doubt or self-condemnation that plagues us, or by lies that assail us with terrifying "what if?" scenarios about which we obsess. From "without" we often face persecution for believing in Jesus Christ in this anti-Christian age, or we face rejection when our Christian identity becomes known among our family and friends. Some of our enemies today may simply be those who love to see us fail, or those who are quick to criticize us or marginalize our efforts. But whoever our enemies may be, when they surround us, it is easy to focus exclusively on them. It becomes difficult to think about anything else.
But into this maelstrom of conflicting enemies, in the heat of battle, God steps between us and our enemies. We would expect him to appear in this scene as the mighty LORD of Hosts, whose strong right arm is filled with his sword to execute justice and wipe out our enemies. But instead, God appears here as a humble host, serving a banquet, focused exclusively on honoring us, welcoming us, and meeting our every need. He appears totally oblivious to our enemies, because he has them totally under his control. The poetic shock of this scene is immense: in the verse before, when evil threatened, God bristled as a powerful shepherd armed with rod and staff, but when the enemies actually surround us, God is pictured as a humble host with a towel on his arm, serving us an unexpected banquet.
But this is no ordinary banquet. In the presence of our enemies, this remarkable host is serving us a victory feast fit for a king. The terms, "anoint my head with oil," and "my cup overflows," are the first two things a gracious host would do for an honored guest in David's day: take a small clay pitcher with a very narrow neck, break the neck, and pour the perfumed oil over the guest's head until it drips onto his beard and clothes, thus anointing him with a sweet smell. For us, this is drippy and messy, but for them it was an act expressing the host's love and honoring of the guest. Then the guest's cup is filled to overflowing so that his thirst may be assuaged. Oh, in the heat and dust of Israel, to have a cup overflowing with cool water! What a scene of unexpected blessing and honor when you are the guest!
So, this gracious host is serving a victory feast fit for a king. The host knows all the enemies are already defeated by him, no matter how loudly they may be clanging their swords on their shields. He is profoundly unconcerned with them, and keenly concerned with lavishing unexpected love and kindness on his guests. What a host! I wonder if this gracious host wants his guests to focus on the enemies, cat-calling at them or cowering in fear over them, or does he want us to simply enjoy table fellowship with him?
What David pictures in this scene must have been a golden truth he had learned in his own life. He had been chased by Saul, and had been pursued by Absalom, but here he tells us how he learned to see beyond his enemies. The enemies are not the true reality for the one who knows God: calmly reclining at table with God as the gracious host, soaking up his declaration of our royalty, enjoying a cup of blessing filled to overflowing, that is his reality for us. Once again, we find that he is enough. Who cares about those enemies?
Verse 6 extends this reality even further. While it may look on the outside that David is being pursued by Saul, or that Absalom is chasing him off his throne, David sees beyond his earthly pursuers to what is really pursuing him: God's goodness and loyal love. Wherever he goes, no matter what the circumstances, regardless of his earthly enemies, he is followed by God's goodness and loyal love. Just imagine how different our lives would be if every time we felt pursued by troubles, beset by enemies, surrounded by difficult circumstances, besieged by our problems, we could see the reality that we are pursued every day of our lives, every step of this journey, by God's never ending goodness and never failing love?
Now you may be saying, "This sounds good, but are you certain of this? How can we know for sure this is true?" We can know because God says so, through David, right here in vs. 6, "Surely goodness and loyal love shall follow me." There is no question; this is not some poetic fantasy David is having. It is surely our reality from God's perspective. But beyond even this, Blythe and I have seen this truth in our lives each year on New Year's Eve, when we sit down together and write another installment in our New Year's Journal, chronicling all the many ways God has been faithful to us throughout the year, how good he has been to us, and how unfailing his love is. It is very helpful to keep prayer journals. What a wonderful aid to seeing how true these words of Scripture are! Surely goodness and loyal love shall follow us all the days of our lives.
So, he is enough to rest me in my restlessness, to restore my soul in my brokenness, to guide me back when I stray, he meets me and makes me know his Presence profoundly in the deep darkness, and he unexpectedly spreads out his victory feast before me as my enemies watch. But what about my future? My future concerns me most. Is he enough for my future?
In the last phrase of this psalm, David addresses perhaps the deepest yearning of the human heart: the yearning for home. How powerful that little word "home" is! Larry Crabb talks about how humanity has been craving a real and healthy home ever since our banishment from the garden of Eden. Two of our greatest stories, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, are entirely built around a little girl's nightmare of being caught far away from home in a strange and foreign land and not being able to get back home. Dorothy's dream ends with a refrain we can all recite from memory: "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." Truly, there is no place like home. But our lives in this fallen world more closely resemble Alice's nightmare and Dorothy's dreamscape than our mental picture of a home. The truth is that no place on this earth is home for us, because we are made for a better home.
I remember being struck by this as a child. On some cheap TV record offer, I ordered the gospel songs of a man named Red Foley. I liked his deep voice, wanting to have one just like it myself. To this day I remember only one song old Red sang: "This world is not my home, I'm just passin' through." Red was right: this world is not our home; we're just visitors.
But our shepherd on this journey is leading us somewhere: right to his home, which is our home, for we shall be with him. In being home with him in the end, we will find our real home. And there we will discover, in the final and eternal sense, that he is enough. Revelation 7:16-17 tell us this very clearly: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them to springs of the water of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes." Now that is a home. And that is where we are going: "And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever."
So, is Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, enough for us? He is enough to rest us in our restlessness; he is the only One who can rest us. He is enough to carry us home in spite of our brokenness; he is the only One who can handle our brokenness. He is enough to guide us in paths of righteousness; he is the only One who can show us those paths. He is enough to meet us in our deep darkness with his powerful presence; he is the only One who can really comfort us in our dark times. He is enough for us when we are surrounded by enemies; he is the only One who can win the victory and serve the victory feast. And he is enough for the future, because he is leading his sheep home...to the only true home we will ever have, his home. And we will live there forever, as long as he is our shepherd and we are his sheep. The Lord is my shepherd: He is enough!
© 1998 Peninsula Bible Church Cupertino