15. My Love Is My Shepherd

(Psalm 23)

In a world where fear and anxiety is high for many people, these may be vital counter-cultural proclamations: God provides. We are dependent. We truly lack nothing.

With the loveliest of tunes, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”, the lyric means to bathe the listener in God’s compassion. Had King David known Bach, I’m certain he would have tuned up his lyre and sung the 23rd Psalm to this melody.

Behind the song: From studying this most beloved Psalm, several songs have emerged. It doesn’t hurt to have an honest-to-goodness shepherd next door to interview about such things. One of the true gifts of living in small-town Iowa.

What is it like to think of God’s love as personally devoted as a shepherd is to his or her sheep? My fellow church staffer Brian reminds me often how Martin Luther spoke of Holy Communion. As much as the gifts of God are for all of us, he emphasized the personal “for you’” words from Christ in the Meal— we need to hear “the Body of Christ given for you.”

Recommended reading: Keller, Philip, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Grand Rapids: Daybreak Books (for Zondervan), 1970.

Kushner, Harold S. The Lord is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom from the Twenty-third Psalm. New York: Knopf, 2003.

VERSE 1
My Love is my shepherd; I need nothing more For she leads me into lush pastures of green And beside the still waters My life is renewed today Guiding me in the best paths of her way, Though I walk through the valley of darkness and fear, My Love is with me.

VERSE 2
Anointed and bless’d with abundance, I thrive With a table prepared in spite of my enemies And all my secret fears My soul lacks for nothing now Goodness and mercy are following me Every day of my life And I’m forever home in the presence of Love