God is with us
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. (Psalm 23:2–3 KJV)
I love Psalm 23, I realized that it’s somewhat of a snapshot of life. In that short chapter, just six verses, you get a brief picture of the cycles of life—the highs and lows, the good times and bad, the peaceful and chaotic. Yet through it all, one thing remains: God’s presence. The enduring and unchanging truth: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
I naturally feel God’s presence more during times of peace and plenty. There’s not as much need, and I feel more confident that He’s there and with me. We don’t usually need to be reminded of God being with us during such times, because we already feel it—we’re in the green pastures and beside the still waters.
Sometimes, though, when things go haywire or not according to plan—the “dark valley” parts of life—I start to feel less like He’s with me. King David was no stranger to times of difficulty, perhaps that’s why he reminds himself of God’s presence in verse four: “Yea, 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.”
God is with us, He is comforting us, even if we can’t sense His presence as strongly. He’s there, even if the dark valley portion of our journey is a little bit longer than we had hoped. [1]
By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise. - Tony Snow
[1] Activated Reaching “Pleasant Places”
