Selah

Today I was thinking of Psalm 23 and how it is written in present tense. That implies that the writer was having the experience he was describing as he was writing it.

"The Lord IS my shepherd..."

I played with that idea for a while, realizing that David is speaking about his life, not some theory about what God might be like. He is describing an ongoing experience, a perpetual relationship in his life, that God IS his shepherd with all that implies.

Then, just for fun, I switched the tense to past perfect tense and thought through the Psalm again. I went through the words, reading them as if they were my own account of walking with God.

"The Lord has been my shepherd, I have not wanted. He has made me lie down in green pastures, He has led me beside still waters..."

Then I asked myself, has this been true for me?

When I read through my old journals I see that there were a lot of times when I was worried and stressed. Lots of times I didn't know how things were going to turn out. I had a brother who was sick for a long time and died way too young even though we prayed for his healing. That was hard to take. There were many times when I wondered if God understood how bad things looked from down here. I actually have been scared that the worst was going to happen more than once.

Yet, as I read about those experiences in my journals, I can cite the times that I needed green pastures and still waters and God led me to them. I can see how He did all of the things described in that Psalm. I have had a home in the wilderness whenever I needed it. I can say now that...

"Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life."

The thing to remember is that the Bible was written by people who were having real experiences with God. It is not just literature. It is the history of people like David who lived very interesting, turbulent lives. David was not composing poetry for poetry's sake, he wrote Psalm 23 the same way that I write in my journals. Read the Bible for what it is, true stories told by eye-witnesses, and it will come alive for you.