Articles
The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want
During the bombings of WWII, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The privileged ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and were cared for. But many of these children couldn’t sleep at night – they had lost so much. They dreaded waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to calm them. Finally, someone got the the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. Throughout the night the bread reminded them, “Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.”
There is an instinct within sheep – they know that since the shepherd made ample provision for grazing today that he will also do so tomorrow. And so sheep lie down in their fold with “the piece of bread in their hand”.
If there is one thing we know about God, it is that He has provided for our needs long before we had any needs. Long before we were hungry, he put fertility in the soil and life into seeds. Before we were cold, he provided fuel on this earth in the form of oil, coal, and gas. Before we needed shelter, he provided the stones and the trees. David made this observation in Psa 37:25 – “I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread.”
The beginning of Psa 23 is not a petition toward God; it is a statement of fact. The Lord “is” my shepherd. He’s made preparation. He’s paved the way. Just as you’ll never see a bird standing beside a road holding a sign saying, “Will work for worms”, our Father in heaven “knows what (we) need before (we) ask Him” – Matt 6:8. All of this has been accomplished so we may work the works of God with no worry about tomorrow.
