Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date.
For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now.
Overview
Those looking for peace and purpose in life will find it here. Our Daily Bread writer David Roper offers a wise and comforting point of view on the twenty-third psalm. Breaking down each verse, Roper reveals the heart of God and His character as The Good Shepherd. You’ll understand the importance of trusting God and discover how to find strength and contentment under His watchful care.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781627079723 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Our Daily Bread Publishing |
| Publication date: | 04/03/2019 |
| Pages: | 152 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.38(d) |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
About the Author
David Roper served as a pastor for many years. Now, he and his wife, Carolyn, offer encouragement and counsel to pastoral couples through Idaho Mountain Ministries. David is author of more than a dozen books, including Every Day Is a New Shade of Blue, A Burden Shared, The God Who Walks Beside Us, and Seeing God, and is a regular and popular writer for Our Daily Bread. Nearly one million of his books are in print.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Slope through Darkness
The great world's altar stairs, That slope through darkness up to God.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I came home from work one evening a few years ago and realized that I had gone flat. Just a blue Monday, I thought, or a bad case of the blahs. Surely a good night's sleep would set things right. But I was wrong.
During the days that followed I descended into a very dark place. I woke up morning after morning in the grip of melancholy, struggling to pull myself out of my gloom. I felt as if I were clinging to the side of a bottomless pit, my handholds precarious, afraid to move for fear I would plunge into a dark abyss.
Work became painful duty, a desperate effort. People with problems were a bother; friends with sunny, cheerful dispositions were a special trial. I wanted to get away from everything and everyone — take early retirement, build a cabin in the woods, or get a permanent job in a lighthouse. I cared for nothing. I enjoyed nothing. I had nothing to live for, and I could think of nothing for which I was willing to die.
Oh, there were flashes of delight — occasions that led me to think that I might be out of the doldrums, but then I would slip again into the old groove of my misery. Each time I moved closer to despair. I could deal with the dreariness; it was the hope that was hardest to bear.
Friends suggested that my joyless state was the result of stresses, losses, or that I was getting a little long in the tooth — but so what? What could I do? I sought good counsel. I read good books. But like Al Capp's Joe Btfsplk, I couldn't get out from under my cloud. Nothing displaced the darkness. Every day was a new shade of blue.
Then one morning something triggered the memory of an old poem — the Twenty-Third Psalm — and the lyrics of that work became my safety line. I awakened morning by morning and seized on its words. I stuck to them like a limpet, reciting the words, reflecting on them, proclaiming them to myself. The Twenty-Third Psalm became my creed.
One spring morning, not long ago, I woke up; the clouds had dispersed and the sun was beginning to shine. I don't know what brought me out of the darkness, but one thing I do know: My melancholy wasn't wasted. It was part of the good that God had determined to do for me. In the end, I could begin to say with Job, "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:5).
What follows are some of the glimpses of God that came my way — a stream of thoughts emanating from the journal I kept during my Dark Age and my subsequent memories and musings. I share them with you in the hope that they will lead you to take another look at this old poem and at that Great Shepherd of the Sheep — the only good shepherd worthy of the name.
CHAPTER 2A Psalm of David
I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or as it is named "spiritual" life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive, rank andsavage one, and I revere them both.
Henry David Thoreau
Michelangelo's marble statue of David stands today in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, Italy eighteen feet tall.
Michelangelo was right to sculpt David with such immensity: He was a giant of a man, combining in himself the military genius of Alexander the Great, the political savvy of Abraham Lincoln, the musical talent of Beethoven, the literary skill of Shakespeare, and the hand-eye coordination of Joe Montana.
But the real measure of David's magnitude was his obsession with God: "One thing I ask of the Lord," he wrote. "This is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple" (Psalm 27:4). He was a man who was preoccupied with the love of God.
Yet, there was that other obsession: David was often consumed by pride, ambition, and lust. Capable of any sin and culpable of many, he frequently gave in to sudden, careless passion and that more deadly device — deliberate and determined evil.
That was David — eaten by lust and by the love of God. His dual obsessions make him familiar to me. He's my kind of man! More importantly, he was God's kind of man as well: "A man after his own heart" is the way God put it (i Samuel 13:14). Ah, the fools God chooses!
Michelangelo took almost four years to finish his statue of David. The task was difficult because he was working with a piece of flawed marble. The block had been damaged when it was removed from the quarry.
So it was with David. He was flawed in his origins, abused as a child, left all alone, and nearly ruined. The world never met his needs.
But God did. He saw that lonely, ragged, love-starved boy as no one else did and set out to shape him into the man He envisioned David to be. It was hard work because David was deeply flawed, but God never gave up until the deed was done. Out of that labor, David's Twenty-Third Psalm was born.
Some say the psalm was one of David's first efforts, composed while he was still a youth. But I disagree. Though the poem enshrines the memories and metaphors of David's early years, it is the thoughts of someone nearer the end of life than the beginning. Only a mature mind can sort out the complexities of life and fix on the things that matter. Only an old soul knows that very few things are necessary — actually only one.
CHAPTER 3"Wanting"
That is the land of lost content.
Alfred Edward Housman
In the movie ClTY SLICKERS, three New York men head for the Old West hoping to find that one thing that satisfies.
The main character is Mitch Robbins, a wisecracking, thirty-nine-year-old advertising salesman who had "lost his smile." Mitch had a lot going for him — a charming wife, two handsome children, a spacious apartment on Roosevelt Island, two good buddies, and a quirky sense of humor. But the joy had gone out of his life. His birthdays, which used to bring him such happiness, now filled him only with sadness, each one reminding him that he still had not found out what life was for.
Mitch's two friends, Ed and Phil, shared his malaise and dreamed up the idea of joining a cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado. (The year before they had run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.) The Old West seemed just the right place to shake off their unhappiness.
When the three men got to the ranch they were greeted by the last of the Marlboro Men, a leathery old cowboy named Curly, whom Robbins characterized as "a saddle bag with eyes." Under Curly's stern tutoring, Robbins and his friends learned to ride and rope before joining the sweaty brotherhood of drovers.
In Robbins' eyes, Curly was a kind of elemental male — a gruff, earthy man who rarely spoke, wore a perpetual smile, and was fearless, invulnerable, and all-knowing. While trailing the herd, Robbins asked Curly the secret of his assurance.
Curly replied, "You've got to find that one thing."
The trouble was, Mitch had no idea what that one thing was and Curly wasn't talking. Then the old bucka- roo died before anyone could uncover the secret of his poise.
The moral of the movie, if there is one, is that each of us must find the "one thing" that will turn us into satisfied, self-assured versions of ourselves. The only problem is, when the house lights go up we're still in the dark: We have no idea what that one thing is.
That elusive "one thing"
Something keeps calling to us: something familiar and yet far away, something we cannot name. It fills us with a vague sense of discontent, a "wanting" for something we cannot identify. "You don't know what it is you want," mused Mark Twain, "but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so much."
The wanting draws us on, promising us that satisfaction and happiness lie just ahead, filling us with restlessness, and keeping us on the move. Yet when we arrive we cannot rest. That's why we enjoy the quest, but not the conquest; the hunt, but not the kill; and that's why finishing can be almost unbearable.
Blaise Pascal, a seventeenth-century philosopher, had this to say:
When I have set myself now and then to consider the various distractions of men, the toils and dangers to which they expose themselves in the court or in the camp, whence arise so many quarrels and passions, such daring and often such evil exploits, etc., I have discovered that all these misfortunes of men arise from one thing only, that they are unable to stay quietly in their own chamber. ... Hence it comes that play, the society of women, war and offices of State are sought after. ... Hence it comes that men so love noise and movement.
The world intensifies our restlessness. Advertisements entice us to buy this, spend that, and to borrow against tomorrow so we can have what we want today. Generous incentives, rebates, markdowns, sales packages, and good deals urge us on, creating desires that we never knew we had.
The more we have, the more we want. Like a child who has opened a dozen gifts, we think more about what we didn't get than about what we did.
"Is this all there is?" we ask. "Isn't there something more?" It's not that we're greedy; it's just that something has been promised that we've not yet received.
Sex is not the solution, no matter what we're told.
In the 1960s, the social comments of Mr. Natural, Robert Crum's combination guru and dirty old man, enlivened the pages of campus newspapers. In one segment Mr. Natural and his student sidekick watch a miniskirted woman walk by. "Is sex the answer, Mr. Natural?" asks the young man. "No, my boy," Mr. Natural replies, "Sex is the question."
Indeed it is. Despite the information glut and all the propaganda in its favor, sex remains a great mystery. Our relentless pursuit of happiness through "good sex" verifies the Rolling Stones' old maxim: "I can't get no satisfaction." What sensual enjoyment remains is little more than a momentary refuge from misery.
It's ironic: the act which, more than any other, ought to assuage loneliness only intensifies it. Where is this great sex that is everywhere advertised but nowhere delivered? Where is the romance and intimacy for which we long? Tina Turner belts out her poignant creed: "What's love got to do with it?" Eventually we too learn to get along without the complications of love.
Friendships don't satisfy. At least they don't touch the deeper currents of life and love for which we long. "Even with the loved around me, still my heart says I am lonely," sighs some forgotten poet. Where is the human tenderness we seek — the readiness to love and accept? When we ask our friends to take away our loneliness we force on them a burden too heavy for anyone to bear. They let us down or go away and we go looking for someone else to curse with our demands. We are very difficult people. All we want is boundless love.
Parents never come through — especially fathers. For some the term father brings only blighted memories. To them it means all they've longed for and missed out on in life. Even those of us who had good fathers often felt they weren't what we wanted or needed them to be. We grew up trying to win their approval yet never receiving the validation we sought. "There is never enough father," Robert Bly laments.
As I stood beside my father's casket a few years ago, my wife, Carolyn, speaking in her quiet wisdom, said to me, "It's too late, isn't it?"
Exactly. Too late to gain his approval. A line from one of Len Deighton's books came to mind: "Do we never shed the tyranny of our father's love?"
Education yields only fragmentary results. We do time in various institutions, taking soundings here and there, but we never get to the bottom of things. There's so much labor in learning, so much to know that we cannot know. "I tasted wisdom," said one philosopher, "but it was far from me." That's the silent conclusion of everyone who matriculates. Perhaps that's why there's so much melancholy on campuses.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and saint and heard great argument About it and about, but evermore Came out by the same door wherein I went.
Omar Khayyam
Success is never final. The long climb from the bottom to the top is exhilarating. We play all the petty games. We endure the privation, the competition, the demands, the drudgery, the long commutes. There's always one more deal to make, one more sale to push through, one more rung to climb, one more achievement to reach before we'll feel OK. We put in the time, we pay the price, and if we're lucky one transaction puts us over the top. But what then? The top is never the pinnacle we thought it would be.
Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.
Emily Dickinson
In an interview with Barbara Walters, Ted Turner confessed that "success is an empty bag." Money talks, but mostly it lies. It deceives us into believing that good fortune will bring satisfaction and security. But having enough is never enough. Having more is the goad that drives us. We pity the disillusioned, lonely, old tycoon with his money fixation, but we don't learn the lesson: "Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income" (Ecclesiastes 5:!0).
"Fame is fleeting" may be among the truest words ever spoken. We may do something or say something that turns heads and causes people to stare at us for a few days, but soon we're forgotten. Emerson was right, "Every hero becomes a bore at last." (And there's nothing quite so heartrending as a has-been trying to make a comeback.)
Marriage is not what it's cracked up to be. Despite the assurance of countless fairy tales, there's no direct relationship between getting married and living happily ever after. Couples start out well but fail because the emptiness and the ache of loneliness are so deep no one can touch them. And then for some desperate souls there are affairs (to use the lighthearted term that we apply to such disastrous ordeals), and then the crude finalities: divorces, bitter custody fights, the demolition of once-happy families, and the estrangement of little ones who are left behind.
Children are a delight. They offer us great happiness but also cause us terribly hard work and at times great suffering.
And then they leave home, as they should, and for some parents the empty nest is more than they can endure. Children are not the final achievement that we seek.
For many, retirement is the chief end. They spend all their adult years trying to make enough money to retire. Then, having reached their goal, they find it empty. Thoreau called it "destination sickness." There they are: exhausted from years of playing the game, well aware that time is running out. All the years spent worrying, scheming, and maneuvering are now meaningless.
We see retirees everywhere with that dead look in their eyes. Having "arrived" they find nothing left for which to live.
Since I have retired from life's competition Each day is filled with complete repetition. I get up each morning and dust off my wits, Go pick up the paper and read the obits. If my name isn't there, I know I'm not dead, I get a good breakfast and go back to bed.
unknown
Then there is old age, with its failing pride and fading power — and regret. We're "hung by our history," as they say. We look back and see the past strewn with the debris of our sin. Yet there's nothing we can do about it. All history, including our own, is unrepeatable.
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort. First, the cold friction of expiring sense Without enchantment, offering no promise But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit As body and soul begin to fall asunder. Second, the conscious impotence of rage At human folly, and the laceration Of laughter at what ceases to amuse. And last the rending pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have done, and been; the shame Of motives late revealed, and the awareness Of things ill done and done to others' harm Which once you took for virtue. The fools' approval stings and honour stains.
T. S. Eliot
And finally, there is the Big Chill. "Time is no healer," as some have said. "The patient dies." Death stalks us relentlessly. There's no escape. "The statistics are very impressive," George Bernard Shaw grumbled, "One out of every one person dies."
It boggles the mind to think of all the money, time, and energy we spend trying to stave off death — the medical profession, the defense budget, the cosmetics industry. But despite all the schemes we devise to stay alive, or at least look alive as long as possible, we only delay the inevitable. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. Everybody, no matter how enduring, descends to decay and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
Like a hen before a cobra, we find ourselves incapable of doing anything at all in the presence of the very thing that seems to call for the most drastic and decisive action. The disquieting thought, that stares at us like a fact with a freezing grin, is that there is, in fact, nothing we can do. Say what we will, dance how we will, we will soon enough be a heap of ruined feathers and bones, indistinguishable from the rest of the ruins that lie about. It will not appear to matter in the slightest whether we met the enemy with equanimity, shrieks, or a trumped-up gaiety — there we will be.
Tom Howard
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Psalm 23"
by .
Copyright © 2012 David Roper.
Excerpted by permission of Discovery House.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
The Slope through Darkness, 9,
A Psalm of David, 13,
"Wanting", 17,
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want, 33,
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 55,
He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake, 75,
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me, 95,
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows, 109,
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, 123,