Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23:6
We seek God’s ways of doing things, and the consequence is we have something better in our own lives, plus positives to offer others. We experience more of His peace, then leave goodness, mercy, and love behind us for others instead of nightmares and “tornadoes” after which they have to scramble to make repairs when we lack foresight.
Of course, the trouble can go either way. There are times we are left picking up pieces from goodness and mercy that did not follow and we ended up in the wake of a “tornado” by someone else.
One of my favorite Psalms is chapter 23. The first part of verse 6 is especially encouraging:
Surely your goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,…
The New American Standard Bible reads goodness and lovingkindness will follow me. Other versions read goodness and mercy.
Verse 6 in context of the short chapter of Psalm 23 bears incredible wisdom gained not through ease, but unbearable pain – yes, unbearable – the only kind of pain and pressures of life that could be withstood because the writer of these verses continually, but not without frustration, turned to God. There is so much here, but for now we will only look at a few things this powerful passage teaches us. Read Psalm 23 in the (New American Standard Bible) version here:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
In this Psalm, David has learned through difficult years that God is faithful. He has also learned it is not possible to control poor decisions others make, that he must do his best to bring impossible situations straight to the place they belong: surrendered over into God’s hands.
The passage of Psalm 23 is about a man that grew to realize God was always at work restoring him toward a fresh start, toward the best things.
If David had been left to remain in his own failures, with no course to move on, he never would have grown to trust God and certainly never would have made it to the throne as king. He would not have learned what leadership was all about without being able to follow a God that handled him in ways that, most importantly, would flow out of his life onto others currently influenced by him, including those serving with him, and future generations his actions would affect.
A young man in college once told me he was planning to run for public office someday. I told him that was great, noble goal, and I was very proud of him. Assuming he wants to be a statesman, and expecting the best of him, I also told him he needs to learn the stuff of integrity now that will help him be the kind of statesman he wants to be and his constituents will need him to be. I said the most important thing he could do now to prepare is to grow humility in his heart, to know he is not perfect and does not know everything and will always be learning. I let him know in order to be a good leader, he needed to develop an ability to listen, be honest in all his ways seen and unseen, and make sure he considers consequences before he acts. I still pray for that young man and others like him who sense a call to run for a public seat. Too many rush ahead without seeking God’s guidance to prepare them for such responsibility. God knew David would make a good king because David sought and responded to God’s guidance. Good leaders always do.
Getting to this point in David’s life took trust – trust that did not happen all in one day or year, even. It happened over time as God showed Himself faithful and David was able to respond to that faithfulness even and especially when David failed.
And because God shows His love through the words David wrote, God’s ultimate example of faithful acts are recorded for us in this book of the Bible. We can read and know these words are about the same God who acts in our own lives now.
He does not change or shift as the wind blows, like we as people do, depending on how the day is going.
David was able to repeat God’s goodness, mercy, and lovingkindness because of how God directed David through the rock bottom worst. We see an amazing image of what God is like through this Psalm. It is an acknowledgement of how God deals with His human creation by means of grace and dignity instead of exasperation over our inadequacy.
And it is not only for our sake, but God’s name sake as it is God’s reputation that is on the line.
He never works in our lives only to let us trudge along to figure things out on our own. He is always working to equip us while we learn from Him.
This is the true treasure in this passage of scripture – that we are not only restored by God for ourselves, but to do what is good and lovingkindness to others as He is teaching and preparing us for some kind of service.
God gets us to such a restoration of our souls that we no longer name the worst things of our pasts but instead name the great things God is doing in our lives, able to breathe words of thanks instead of words of fear and doubt within the next adversity.
This is because God never intends for us to live in the stress of crushing blows that come along. That is not what we are designed for. These are places we learn from, not where we are to live.
God spent years teaching David all about what it would mean to be a good king. It was training that no one would ever have chosen as so many people along the way dealt with David treacherously.
But God never did that.
He instead caused goodness and mercy – not the damage of tornadoes – to evidence from wreckage in David’s life. God had us in mind back then, and does the same for us today as we turn to Him. If we can remember this when the winds are blowing against us the hardest, then we will end up standing strong no matter what.
