I know of few prayers or meditations that are richer than the 23rd psalm...I keep returning to it for inspiration over and over again, and it keeps sneaking into my poems!
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
The current crop of linguists say that the valley of the shadow means a deeply shadowed valley, and tend not to add "of death" to the current crop of translations.
But if you have been in the West you can find many treacherous valleys that are very narrow, shadowed, where you cannot see the road ahead of you or behind. These have in the past been places of ambush. You do not know the road head, what dangers lurk, and you cannot always see where you've come from. The warming light of the sun can be blocked out, and even though it is day, all is darker than it would be if you were out in the open.
Will there be a rock slide as you traverse the valley? will you drive it too fast and smash into a wall? Will bandits be up ahead? Will there be a rain that swells and makes the valley impassable? You cannot know the answers ahead. You have to keep on, in trust that you will make it through. It is a place where death is possible, a place where danger may be real.
Lots of time in life we are in those valleys, where we can't see our way out, we don't know what exactly lies ahead, and frequently, the dark has us frightened of the possibilities.
But for those of us who believe, we know we are not alone. For He IS with us, each and every step of the way, and when we are out of the dark valley, he will truly lead us into the green pastures which will be our home forever.
There in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
Where God takes us to learn about who gives us breath
Each step that we take may seem heavy with threat
As we face then the truths we would rather forget.
It does not matter if we laugh or weep,
Be in pain or shock or fear or sleep,
Eternity hovers but a moment away
To walk with us into that unending day.
We think that so often we stand in the sun,
Yet through that dark valley our footsteps did run.
Someone was there one moment and not the next,
This frailty of mankind is an ancient text.
Yet Valley of the Shadow, when I'm in your way,
I chose not fear you by night or by day,
Ambush or pain or dark uncertainty
Shall not hide the gift of light by which I see.
My Shepherd he leads me by day and by night
Through the darkness of death to his glorious sight -
In his hand is the peace that makes no worldly sense
When the shadows of midnight grow dark and dense.
If trembling I wait there between death and life,
Doubled over in pain cutting hard like a knife,
He still is my comfort and lets my heart see
I am in his hands whatever will be.
Valley of the Shadow, you are but a gate,
Doorway to tomorrow, all humankind's fate.
My final hope lies beyond your shadowed door,
Where I will dwell in my Lord's house forever more.
*Yea, verily* - it is, indeed, rich. My touchstone. It takes pondering inside and out and always reveals new vistas.
For many years when meditating on it, I would tend to gloss over one part that bothered me (and usually go straight to the *table before me* so I could conjure up some food, lol, to withhold from my salivating enemies). (Yes, I know that's not the spirit of the lesson, but I'm only human.)
Anyway, I would get to "Thy rod and Thy staff" and whimper like a whipped puppy. They did *not* comfort me. Then one day, when I was ready to "get it," I heard an explanation of shepherd's rods and staffs and why they carry them.
The rod isn't for beating the little lamb - it's for guiding the lamb so it won't do something stupid like falling off the side of the uphill rocky trail (with no guardrails, of course).
And the staff isn't a hook to grab the offender off the large stage, it's Plan B for when the little lamb does accidentally fall over the side, anyway, or stray too far off the path. I pictured myself falling through the air and the big staff coming down to grab me and save me before I got hurt, then placing me up on the proverbial rock of safety.
I'd had a vision once of God's enormous hands reaching down and saving a friend of mine from death on some rocks near a sea. A few days later, a mutual friend called to tell me that the friend in question had been in a parasailing accident in Acapulco, but had been saved from sure death on the sharp rocks when a small wind gust suddenly lifted the parasail just a little and he was placed gently on the beach, scratched but otherwise unhurt.
Now that's what I see when I meditate on the rod and staff.
I've experienced some deep valleys - oh the waters have come nigh my neck! - but God my God, to Him I've called, and even in the silence, even through the long watches of the night, it is the calling that comforts me, for we cannot call upon One who is not there.
He is Jehovah-Shammah Forever, amen.
In all their affliction He was afflicted,
And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bore them and carried them
All the days of old.
~Isaiah 63:9
BTTT