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There is the ancient spring of Air Farah lying northeast of
Jerusalem. This is generally accepted as the scene of David's
boyhood. The youngest son of the Hebrew family was the one who
kept the sheep. This beautiful spot in the wilderness fits the
atmosphere of the Twenty-third Psalm. It was probably there that
the prophet anointed the boy, David, King of Israel.
The authorship of the 23rd Psalm is not absolutely certain,
but it could fit well into David's mature years. After his
youthful sin with Bathsheba, after his repentance, his
forgiveness and his restoration by God, David became a beautiful
soul -- "A man after God's own heart." We like to think of David
writing this psalm after he had passed through the struggles of
life, and in it all, had discovered a deep and abiding faith in
God. So now his soul declares the beauty and depth of his
confident trust in the Shepherd God. Perhaps, too, we can
discover this faith in the wilderness pilgrimage of our own
living.
A little girl misquoted this verse:

"The Lord is my shepherd,
That's all I want."

Not bad!
"Man has put himself on the throne of the Universe; but the
universe has pulled the throne out from under him." The Universe
knows who is in control:
"The Lord is my shepherd."
In a technological age, technology alone, out of control,
threatens us with death. We must rediscover the universe

that cares so that we may care. We cry out for a faith great
enough, a love deep enough to redeem this age.
God has not surrendered to technology. He designed it and
empowered it to be servant -- not master. Science is not God, but
God's instrument. The test tube is not ultimate reality. People
cannot be savior to their own lostness. In spite of our
sophistication and scientific independence we are still
"wanting." I am spiritually hungry. Back of all this, "The Lord
is my Shepherd." The universe really cares. I shall not want for
any necessary thing. With God alive, we are never helpless.
Grace Kelly, when she was eight years old, wrote a little
verse that expresses a basic fear:

"I hate to see the sun go down,
And squeeze itself into the ground;
For fear some time it might get stuck,
And then tomorrow not come up."

But God is in charge, and it does come up.
The sad truth is: "We have built us a monumental world. We
have slaved for it; have spent upon the outside all that is of
value within our nature -- while inside, our world is left shabby
and insufficient." "Humankind," Bergson suggests, "lies groaning
half crushed beneath the weight of his own progress -- his soul
too small to fill it; too weak to guide it." Our secular,
materialistic life forces us to agree: "The technological body,
now larger, calls for a bigger soul; but we have sold our soul
for the body and have no soul -- we are dead!" Yes, without a
greater living faith, we are doomed. God is still alive and near;
but we are not aware.
We have been looking "downstream" for life's meaning; when
meaning is to be found "upstream." In our accelerating economy,
we awake at 3 o'clock in the morning all full of anxieties, full
of hunger and fears, realizing that the deep-freeze is full, but
that there is not enough spiritual food in the house to last out
the night.
We are still in want, even in the abundance of a technological
age. It would make us less desperate, less dangerous,

to know in our hearts that God cares, really cares. He is
infinitely more powerful and more loving than we have ever
imagined. He is like Jesus: "absolute authority; total
compassion."

"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd;
He shall gather the lambs with his arm,
And shall carry them in his bosom,
And shall gently lead those that are with young."
Isaiah 40:11

That means something to me. That fills the spiritual vacuum. God
is not an arbitrary, "dice-throwing God." "The Lord is my
shepherd." The Shepherd knows his sheep by name. The sheep know
his voice. When we really believe this, and respond to it, it
will change the climate of the world.
"Our God is too small." You can't play around with God and
keep your sanity. We can't play along with shallow theologians
saying, "God is dead;" nor with a flightly movie actress
declaring, "God is a perfect doll;" nor with many unthinking
people glibly saying, "The person upstairs." God is God All
Mighty, designer, creator, sustainer of the universe. I still
believe that the God of Creation who designed the progressing
miracle of evolution; the God of Moses and the emerging nations;
the God of Christ involved with and suffering with his people, is
big enough and practical enough to cope with the technological
age, to bring it into line, and to fill it with meaningful life.
Listen:

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall
abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
... He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I
trust ...
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings
shall thou trust.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the
arrow that flieth by day;
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the
destruction that wasteth at noonday."
Psalm 91:1-6

Life has teeth in it, sometimes sharp teeth. Faith must be
rugged enough to cope with life as it is. "The Lord is my
Shepherd," just might be the answer to the dreadful vacuum at the
heart of this secular age -- the age that raises questions and
does not answer them.
In this time when often marriage vows are not taken seriously,
when children are neglected and abused, when too many young
adults still carry the scars of not having been loved in their
childhood, the rediscovery of the God who is like Jesus could
give us peace and put us back on track again. Isn't it possible
for us to see that when we have repudiated Christ in our thinking
and in our living, that "real life has already deserted us and
our world itself is moving in a kind of ritual dance toward
death?" The death of the bomb, or the slower, surer death of
rottenness.
In all of this the Shepherd God pursues us in love -- even
through the ravines, the thorns, the brambles, the desert stones
of today's world. Even the bad people are his people. But the
loving "Hound of Heaven" is out looking for us all night long
when we are lost. But we run away from his love and hide behind
our sins and selfishness. And that is the end of the road.
"The soul of each person is under the siege of God (Douglas
Steere)" who calls, "Come in, come in, come all the way in." But
we stumble along, half in and half out of life, willing to pray
on one knee, but afraid to put both knees down. "The great
effective act of faith is when a person decides that he is not
God," and surrenders to ultimate love and eternal life.
But so much of God's healing love is hidden deep in life and
we take it for granted. For example, if you fly to La Paz,
Bolivia, and land there on the Alta Plain at 13,000 feet
altitude, as you disembark from the plane you will feel weak and
sick, and possibly faint. After about two weeks you will feel
alright. What has happened? Without your knowing it, God (through
nature) has doubled or quadrupled your red blood corpuscles so
that now they can carry sufficient oxygen to your oxygen hungry
cells. You have been mysteriously sustained by the Shepherd God.

The psalmist knew this:

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve
thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from
this time forth, and even for evermore.
The Lord is thy keeper ...
... he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth (thee) shall neither slumber nor
sleep.
(Psalm 121 -- Selected verses)

Someone wisely suggests that the "universal concern" of God ought
to make us a "people of universal concern." And that is what a
Christian is: a caring person, living in a realm of caring
people, under a caring God. Each caring for everybody else, and
therefore each being cared for.
While we are so deeply obsessed by "self-protection" and "self
promotion," we cancel out the universal concern which could bring
us the experience of self-fulfillment instead of the devastating
selfishness that now strangles us. If we really know the Shepherd
God we can no longer think in terms of a "satisfactory kill-
ratio" in our dealings with our enemies. Instead our national
passion would be an authentic motivation toward peace. I like
these words from an editorial in The Christian Century:

'God is love.' Sometimes punishing, sometimes rewarding us, but
always loving us. Whether he is calling us down or lifting us up,
God loves us. God doesn't give us up even when we stumble. He
sticks.

When I am convinced, both consciously and subconsciously, that
"the Lord is my Shepherd," then I have an authentic motivation
both for life and for peace.
The Shepherd God is shepherding us, and through us shepherding
others. An excellent surgeon left my church and a good practice
to go as a medical missionary to Pakistan. He wrote me about a
little girl with a dangerously inactive kidney whose life he had
saved through a delicate surgical procedure.

She had no money; she would have died; but her life was saved by
the Shepherd God who had called a Christian doctor to serve where
things were most difficult and unrewarding. The doctor, however,
was overjoyed at the door God had opened to him, and at the life
he had saved. God works through Christ; Christ works through
Christians.
The Shepherd is at work in many ways: It is the Shepherd
instinct in us that cares for our children; it is the Shepherd
spirit in the doctor that cares for his patients; it is the
Shepherd spirit that makes us care for those who work forus and
those who work with us -- and those whose paths we cross every
day.
But how could humanity have strayed so badly if the Lord is
our Shepherd? The Shepherd does not push the sheep; he leads
them. Some will not follow. Some are so self-involved they cannot
see him nor hear his call. Some of us are "so broad-minded that
we are flat-headed." We are smothering ourselves in our own
embrace. We do not want what God wants. We are afraid of the
Shepherd because he carries a cross; and that is a threat to our
comfortable living. But let it not be forgotten, it is with that
cross of caring that he saves us. It is with that cross that he
sends us out to save others.
The Shepherd God stands in the midst of life's wilderness; in
the dangerous terrain of life, where the rocks and the ravines
threaten; where the wolves roam; where the refreshing springs are
hard to find. God meets us where the problem is. Life is a fact!
Death is a fact! Sorrow and pain and joy are facts. This
Existential world is the place where things come to pass! Events
continually invade our lives. With all our technical perfection,
cars pile up on our highways, our loved ones may be involved;
planes collide and dive into crowds of people; ships ram each
other at sea; disease and death attack mansion and hut alike.
There is no real assurance in our brilliant technology. Will the
next launch into space be consumed by fire? Will the ejector
eject? Will someone drop the bomb? Our lives are invaded again
and again by joy and by sorrow; by despair and by hope. There has
to be something beyond the physical. All this does not deny God.
It is in the event we meet God, and walk with him beyond the
event.

There is something more. Under the growl of the atom, in a
world held hostage, amidst the fragments of our broken homes, our
broken lives, in the concerns of our confused youth, with us in
our desperate need, stands the Shepherd God. The Shepherd on a
cross! This is another kind of event; it happened; they crucified
him. Life was rough on him -- the kind of life we have to face.
Jesus was hurt and he understands our hurt.
But there is still another event -- the resurrection. The bonds
of death are forever broken! The Good Shepherd was destroyed. And
yet he came back and gathered his disciples into a working unit
of effective love -- filled with his spirit. The resurrection, the
event to answer all other events! "Nothing can separate us from
the love of Christ!" "In the world you shall have tribulation --
but I have overcome the world." Christ is the ultimate reality.
This is not naive thinking, but a simple statement of fact. By
faith, the Christian discovers here a basis for a life of great
and confident living in any age.
Dr. George Buttrick suggests that people think that they have
waited and waited for a God who never comes, for a God who makes
promises and does not fulfill them -- God does come! God came and
they did not know him when he came. He is at the door and
knocking, now. But we are listening to television!
The word, the event, the shepherd "are new in every new age.
The gift from God who gives new songs in every new night -- who
leads God's human flock by mountains and desert, by storm and
sunlight of this world, to a New City!"

"The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want."

In God do I put my trust.