Lessons from Psalm 23 - David's Confidence

“Even when I walk through the valley of deep darkness,

I will fear no evil…”

Psalm 23:4

Psalm 23 is what biblical scholars call a song of confidence.

We all need a song of confidence sometimes.  Because we all encounter trials, we all face fears, and we all find ourselves in places and moments where deep darkness seems to drown out every ray of hope.  Those places where plans and dreams fade to black, where everything we thought we knew, both present and future, is up for grabs.

What will you do when your greatest fear looks you in the eye?  When words you never wanted to hear reach your ears, how will you respond?  Will you cope?  Or will you crumble?  Will you have a faith that stands?

Six weeks ago, a diagnosis delivered in the tight confines of a doctor’s office gave birth to my greatest fear.  The possibility of losing my wife looked me in the eye and refused to blink.  On March 15, 2012, my wife Heather was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in her right eye.  My wife.  My best friend.  My partner in family and life and ministry.  Melanoma.  Cancer. 

For a few lingering, slow-motion moments, I was ok.  I told myself it would be ok.  I gave her a reassuring look.  And then more words came.  Words like “chest scans” and “liver function.”  I knew what they meant.  I’d been down this road before.  My knees went weak.  My head got light.  I needed to sit down.  This couldn’t be happening.  Not her.  Not now.  Not like this.

You see, for my family, cancer has been the bully in the schoolyard for the past 15 years.  Occasionally he moves on and picks on someone else, but not before he has left broken hearts and shattered dreams in his wake, claiming the lives of people we love.  He is heartless and care-less.  He doesn’t limit his territory to dark alleys or the wrong part of town.  His patterns are unpredictable.  He doesn’t give a rip about character or karma.  He finds you in your bed at night, and refuses to relent in spite of the day.  As far as I’m concerned, if Jesus is the image of the invisible God (and He is), then cancer is the image of our invisible enemy – coming only to steal, kill and destroy.

David and I (and likely you) have something in common.  We both know a place called the valley of deep darkness.[1]  That place where looming darkness attempts to drown out hope.  I don’t know what David’s valley was.  My guess is that he had many such valleys.  Cancer is my valley of deep darkness.

Yet David and I have something else in common: a tested and proven confidence in God.  I love David’s declaration of confidence in Psalm 23 verse four. “I will fear no evil.”  David would have tweeted it like this:  “I. Will. Fear. No. Evil. #Confidence #Steadfastness.”  In the face of darkness - the thickest darkness.[2]  In the face of fear – perhaps his greatest fear.  Confidence in God.  Don’t you want that?  Who wouldn’t want that?!? 

We would do well to locate the source of such confidence.  David reveals it in two Hebrew words.  We require three to translate to English, but they are broken up like this: “You.  With me.”  The reason for David’s confidence in the face of evil, in the face of fear and in the midst of darkness:  “You.  With me.”  When he couldn’t see God.  When he couldn’t feel God.  He still knew that God was “with him.”

David’s statement reveals an important spiritual truth:  Past faithfulness builds future confidence.  A good friend of mine[3] shared that in a sermon more than five years ago and I remember it to this day.  Not because the words are profound, but because the truth of it is - as I have witnessed time and time again.

  Past faithfulness builds future confidence.  The past faithfulness of God builds future confidence in us.  By experiencing the loving care of our Shepherd through daily life as well as times of trial, we know that He will care for and sustain us whatever may come our way.  It is a confidence borne out of experience.

Hebrew scholars tell us that David’s verse of confidence – “I will fear no evil, for you are with me” – is the apex or peak of his song of confidence.  That means that everything in the psalm flows up to it or down from it. 

David knew God’s faithfulness – and he makes this clear in the beginning of the psalm.  When he could find no place to rest, God was a pasture of cool green grass where he could lay down in safety.  When the threats of his enemies echoed in his ears, the reassuring voice of God was as the sounds of soothing waters.  And when his soul approached the breaking point, the Good Shepherd was faithful to bring restoration – in Hebrew, to “give life back” to his weary soul.

The psalmist’s words in Psalm 71 are so relevant here.

“For you, O Lord, are my hope,

my trust, O Lord, from my youth…

You who have made me see many troubles 

and calamities will revive me again.”  

 (Psa 71: 5,20)

Past faithfulness built future confidence for David.  And God's past faithfulness builds future confidence for us as well.

The confidence you need today is found in the faithfulness of God in all of your yesterdays.

Author's note:  You can find information and updates regarding Heather's condition on her Caring Bridge site...  http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/heatherhawks

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[1] Many translations have the phrase “valley of the shadow of death,” however the word “death” is not there in the original Hebrew text.  A more literal translation is “valley of deep darkness” or “valley of thick darkness.”  Tradition is the primary reason that “valley of the shadow of death” continues to be a popular reading. The fact that the word for darkness here is the strongest possible Hebrew word for darkness leads some to conclude that David must have had death in mind.

[2] The word for darkness here is the strongest possible Hebrew word for darkness.  In Job 28:3 it is used for the darkness of a mineshaft – the kind of darkness where you can’t see your hand in front of your face.

[3] Credit for this memorable phrase goes to my good friend and faithful brother in Christ, Steven Bronston.

The Grammar School of Faith

“The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” Romans 3:22

It is a strange thing indeed and might be an oxymoron were it not true. How knowing more about Jesus can lead to forgetting about Him. And how followers of Christ can often leave their leader behind. Neither makes sense. And both are owed to a conflict within us – the battle between the flesh and the spirit, the physical and the transcendent.

John Bradford, a sixteenth century English reformer and martyr, was well acquainted with this very human phenomenon. Bradford described what he called “Christless talkers.” Those who seemingly forget the elementary principles of faith and repentance. He was well acquainted with those who were full of “a bare head knowledge of sound words [that] availeth nothing.” Christless talkers. A moniker we would do well to avoid.

The constant challenge of the Christian life is to take a great journey of faith without forgetting the starting point. To walk a great distance with Jesus without ever getting far from the cross. For his cross is the source of his grace to us, and his grace is the source of our life in him.

This journey is not without its pitfalls. It is a journey with Jesus, but our flesh is always along for the ride. This flesh that would rather do than be. This flesh that would rather achieve than receive. The flesh that desperately wants a righteousness of its own rather than a righteousness that comes through faith.

And that is why a bare head knowledge of Jesus will never do. Because head knowledge often leaves the heart untouched. In this way it offers a sense of well-being, but fails to confront the pride-filled flesh. Paul noted a group of people in his second letter to Timothy whom he described as “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2Tim 3:7). Knowing about Jesus. But not knowing Jesus. Giving lipservice to him, but serving ourselves.

If we want to be more than “Christless talkers,” we must remember the lessons from return regularly to what Bradford calls “the grammar school of faith and repentance.” We must return frequently and remember where it all began for us – where it can begin for you today – with a Savior on a cross and a sinner on his knees. It began with a heart crying out and Jesus answering her pleas.

This vision of Savior and sinner, the Righteous and unrighteous, must be woven daily into the very fabric of our hearts, lest we forget our need for him.

I speak from experience, because my struggle is not in knowing that I have been saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8). Neither is my struggle in knowing that justification is a free gift (Rom 3:24). I have been taught that many times and read it countless more.

No, my struggle is in convincing my pride-prone heart that I need Jesus as much today as I did the day I met Him. My struggle is in remembering that today – in my own flesh – there is nothing to commend me to God (Rom 7:18). My struggle is in remembering that it is only by grace that I have been saved. And that is not my own doing. That is the gift of God.

My best days are the days that I live with an awareness of this fact: I am still an empty sinner in need of grace.

I like the way Roy and Revel Hession frame this in their classic work, We Would See Jesus:

“Grace permits us to come (nay, demands that we come) as empty sinners to be blessed: empty of right feelings, good character and satisfactory record, with nothing to commend ourselves but our deep need, fully and frankly acknowledged… The struggle, of course, is to believe it and to be willing to be but empty sinners to the end of our days…”

Empty sinners. To the end of our days. Seeing ourselves as empty sinners will keep us closer to the cross. Closer to the place where Jesus can be found. And closer to the source of his grace.

As Roy and Revel put it, when “our deep need (is) fully and frankly acknowledged… Then grace, being what it is, is drawn by that need to satisfy it, just as water is drawn to depth (by gravity) that it might fill it.”

How long has it been since you have allowed the grace of God to plumb – and replenish – the depths of your heart? Taking some time for a clear picture of your Savior in light of your sin can do wonders for the soul. Return again and again to the cross, in both humility and gratitude, and drink your fill of His glorious grace.

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A bare head knowledge will lead us away from Jesus,
blind to our need for Him.
But a heart that is mindful of its own poverty will keep us returning to the cross and the source of his grace,
that we might be filled again and again with the person and character of Christ.

For the Spirit says,
“I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5