As we walk through the Christian year together, each season will be accompanied by a guiding question – a question to wrestle with, pray through, and bring to God. During the season of Lent, as we give our attention towards the cross, we’re asking together: “Where are we being drawn into repentance?”

We’ve all been through moments or seasons that felt like “the valley of the shadow of death.” Talk about a moment or season in your story where the darkness felt like it wouldn’t leave. How did you find God in those moments? 

The dark valleys we walk through are often restless. And yet our Good Shepherd leads us to rest (v. 2) in a place of protection and provision. How are you finding rest in the chaos of your life and the world around us? 

גֵּיא צַלְמָוֶת: the valley of the shadow of death; the valley of deepest darkness

The Lord is my shepherd…

Psalm 23:1a NIV

The God we meet in Psalm 23 is a God in the middle of our mess.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil…

Psalm 23:4a NIV

I will fear no evil, for you are with me…

Psalm 23:4b NIV, emphasis added

“The truth is that every moment of every day, the most significant reality in the entire universe is the radical availability of God’s presence.”

— AJ Sherrill, Being with God

I lack nothing.

Psalm 23:1b NIV

The Shepherd’s provision is the fruit of his presence.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

Psalm 23:2-3a NIV

[Y]our rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4c NIV

“A shepherd’s staff is used to rescue sheep who are isolated and in danger[.] The staff is used as an extension of the shepherd’s voice, lightly tapping the shoulder or laying the staff across the side of a special sheep, as though to say, ‘I’m here.’”

— K.J. Ramsey, The Lord Is My Courage

We are not saved from the valley. We’re saved within it.

“He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them.”

— Robert Farrar Capon, The Astonished Heart

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 23:6 NIV

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

Mark 6:34a NIV, emphasis added

Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass.

Mark 6:39 NIV

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 10:10-11 NIV

“We who have been scattered, whose lives have been shattered and who wonder if we ever mattered to God, are being sought by this Shepherd right in the places that sting, where our stomachs rumble and souls quake. This Good Shepherd still looks out over the crowd of sheep without a shepherd and feels so much compassion he is compelled to act. As we sit on the hillsides where it seems hope might be lost, we are positioned exactly where small offerings overshadow scarcity to soothe and strengthen us into seeing—even just for a day—the kingdom of God is in our midst.”

— K.J. Ramsey, The Lord Is My Courage