Good morning! The Shepherd’s Psalm (Psalm 23) has provided Christians with comfort and hope over the millennia. God places Christians all over the world as a witness to all the cultures of the lordship of Christ and His saving work.

In David’s time, nomads longed for a home that had what the lush tablelands offered. The table set before God’s people in the presence of their/His enemies are thought to be those mesas that provided needed nourishment and rest after traveling through the troubles valleys “of the shadow of death.” To find a place here was, for the shepherds and their sheep, to find a home.

Our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ (John 10) provides that home. “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself–that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3). Christians follow their Good Shepherd through the easy places and through the challenging ones, all the while knowing that their hope is not in their circumstances, but in the Shepherd leading them.

On what are you focused–your circumstances or the Shepherd? Only our Shepherd can rescue us from that valley of the shadow of death. Yes, we may dwell there here, but not always. Christ is taking us toward home. May our home be with Him!