Psalm 23:4 – With Me
Even though I’m walking in a deadly dark valley
I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
Your scepter and your staff give me comfort.
The words are few, but the message is deep. Even with God guiding us, we will find ourselves going through times of trouble and darkness. We will be in places where we will wonder what happens next. Journeying with God is not a constant triumphal parade in which everything that happens to us appears and feels glorious.
God’s scepter and staff (rod and staff – KJV), meaning is authority and his support and presence give us the ability to live through the times of deep darkness and the fear of the shadow of death. God is there.
This is a message (I think the message) in the book of Job. When God appears, 38 chapters in, God provides no answers to Job’s questions. God dismisses everything from the third through the 37th chapter.
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” God asks Job. Then he proceeds to ask Job questions. When the speech is done, Job responds,
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
Job 42:5-6 (NRSV)
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.
But even there, God changes the tune as he tells Job’s friends that they have not spoken of him in the right way, as his servant Job has done.
It’s knowing that God is there that satisfies Job.
In that deep valley, we can know that God, who, through Christ, is acquainted with our every trial and weakness (Hebrews 2:10-11 & 4:14-16). Like Job, we will try to find reassurance that God is actually hearing us and aware of our situation, but we have the assurance.
I like the description of God, originated by process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, as the “fellow-sufferer who understands.” There’s some more to this view of God, however. Let me quote Bruce Epperly, author of the book Messy Incarnation, which I publish:
God is the fellow sufferer who understands and the joyful heart who celebrates. God cries along with the Bethlehem mothers, mourning the slaughter of their children. God experiences the hopelessness of parents separated from their children to fulfill the campaign promises of a self-interested political leader. God feels the terror of a child running for his life in a war-torn land and the panic of an adult on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, crying for mercy, “I can’t breathe.” God places you on God’s knees in prayerful embracing. God never places God’s knee on your spiritual neck!
Bruce Epperly, Messy Incarnation, p. 37
I would like to emphasize here that God suffers with all sufferers, not just those we manage to care about. God loves the world and feels the pain brought about by evil. God’s caring is not limited and conditional as ours so often is.
Yes, God can even care for me,. one who so often forgets, fails to recognize, and lives as though caring was optional and occasional. Even while writing this, there was a call to care, and it annoyed me. I acted, but not with grace. Yet God still cares and walks with me.
Who is God calling you to care more for today?
