Psalm 23 Musings - THE SHEPHERD

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need”

I’ll be honest, I grew up hearing Psalm 23 - and I thought it was boring. Maybe because it was so familiar, it just felt like a cute nursery rhyme. Just words that everyone knew. 

Perhaps this is why God chose this passage to radically change my life. Now, I feel like Psalm 23’s biggest fan, but don’t worry, I won’t get too carried away. Today I just wanted to muse over some thoughts about the first verse. 

Familiar as these words may be, it takes some pausing and pondering to really let the meaning settle in:

  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want 

The LORD is my shepherd, I will not be in need 

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing 

The LORD is my shepherd; I have all that I need 

The whole point David is making is that The Lord Himself is his Shepherd. It’s personal. But it’s the second line that needs to sink in.  David has all he needs BECAUSE of this fact, because it is Jehovah that is his Shepherd.

Based on what the entire passage expresses, it seems David is writing from a real and true experience of walking, like a little sheep, with a Shepherd. He is not prescribing, as much as inviting his audience to see and hear what it has meant for him to have Yahweh Himself as His Shepherd.

What David is NOT saying is that he does not HAVE needs. What we have to be careful of is a religious human tendency to avoid the needy part.  

I’m not sure about you, but I have yet to meet someone who loves being called needy. It’s usually a put down. It feels shameful. If you are too needy, you have failed somehow. But this social construct goes directly against the sentiment David is expressing. It’s the very fact that David HAS NEEDS that have now found their match that it MERITS WRITNG DOWN. He is celebrating, recording this stunning reality he finds himself in.  “I finally have all my needs met - I have found God as my Shepherd - It’s a miracle”.

But that religious human tendency to avoid the needy part can be tricky. I have actually heard it taught “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want - means we don’t need to want anything because we have God”. But to say this is to deny reality. And to deny reality is to tear the human soul. I think rather David is inviting us right into the full facing of our humanity, our weakness, our neediness. Because having needs is simply part of design, it’s part of how God made us.

Within His design, our Creator instilled in our bodies the need for air, water, nutrition, sleep…needs. Without which we would die. He has instilled into our souls the need for love, worth, significance, belonging…without which, we would die. Even if just relationally. 

This is not a small thing. We were created needy.

Unfortunately weakness tends to lead us to shame, and shame always distorts. For most of us “needy” is a negative word, and “lack” carries a sense of failure. But David wasn’t ashamed, he was celebrating - and to join him, we first have to face our reality. 

Neil Anderson talks about how honesty is foundational to spirituality and personal growth, and I think he is onto something. What if honesty isn’t just about not telling white lies, it’s about this facing of reality. 

Have you faced the reality of your inner needs? Have you named the longings that compel and compulse you? 

Maybe talking about your needs feels silly, dumb, or even scary. Maybe this whole concept makes you go numb. Maybe not, but I’ve talked to enough people who feel this way to venture a guess that you are not alone. 

Are you afraid to ask for what you want? 

Do you meet everyone else’s needs at the detriment of your own? 

Do you pray small prayers, avoiding being disappointed or afraid of being presumptuous? 

Do you have to burn out before you slow down?

Have you just settled, “this is the best it will be”?

Managing and denying needs is human survival 101. For most of us this starts young. We learn to stop having needs that exceed what is available. We learn to survive, to get by with what we can get. Denying that we might need more. That something inside aches.

In another desperate attempt, we spiritualize it trying to feel better that God meeting all your needs means you shouldn’t have any. I am not making this up. I have heard this sentiment expressed by more than a handful of people, not to mention, I can relate. 

Maybe expressing needs has only brought you pain. And that’s where the real answer lies. See, children don’t stop expressing neediness without reason. They have to be faced with or believe something terrible in order to stop asking for what they need. Because it is the nature of a child to need. 

To stop asking, to “stop needing” is to preemptively decide it’s easier to live without than to face what it means to ask and it not be given. What the heart believes when a need is denied is the most intense pain a human can bear: the terror of facing the question “Am I loveable?” 

“Do I matter?”

“Am I worth being taken care of?”

Maybe this sounds dramatic or too deep, I have been accused of both. But this is human. And as a witness to the process of human hearts, I long to see all humans come out of denial and step into reality. For to face reality is to open the door to Truth. 

If you are willing to let your heart speak, you may find it asking such a question as these:

Am I loved? Do I matter? Am I worth being taken care of? 

Whether you learned to manage needs in your childhood or in the responsibilities of adulthood, your heart is still created to ask these questions. 

We often try to answer these questions our own way, in a sense becoming our own shepherd. A sheep shepherding itself is not just laughable, but treacherous. We all know this through experience if we are honest. We try to guide, provide, and lead ourselves - we find a plethora of ways to make it work, to figure life out. But when it is “Im doing my best” we have NO OPTION but to settle for “what I can get”. What a tragedy, when we could live like David, “I have all I need”.
If David’s expression sounds like a quaint poem or familiar adage and not the cry of your heart, it might be time to slow down and confront your relationship to your needs. 

Sometimes the distance we feel with God is distance from our own neediness. 

I’m inviting you to face your reality, because honesty opens up the pathways of grace. It is in our need that God’s provision floods in.

So, what keeps you from acknowledging your needs? 

Shame? Pride? Fear? 

A good next step is to get honest about what stands in the way - what have you tried? 

RELIGION (I have to earn it)

DISSAPOINTMENT (I have been hurt too many times, lost too much)

DELAY (it hasn't happened YET)

WOUNDS (its always been this way for me…)

Our good brother David is giving us the answer here. The Lord. He is My Shepherd. Now I have all I need. What does it look like to just be needy, and be Shepherded? 

When we are able to discover and encounter that God Himself is our personal Shepherd, the cry of hearts can finally find a resting place. 

I am loved. I matter. I am worth being taken care of. 

In case you doubt, look at Jesus. 

“I am the Good Shepherd, I lay my life down for the sheep” (John 10:11). 1 John 3:16 tells us if we need to be convinced of God’s love, we can KNOW by looking at what Jesus did. His incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection prove to us PERFECT LOVE. The kind that casts out fear, that dispels shame, and answers the cries of our hearts. Jesus Himself embodies reality that communicates “you are loved, you matter, you are worth being taken care of”. Jesus beckons to us, to let Him be our Shepherd. 

We all have a choice, we can keep managing our needs. Mask what feels like weakness, over or under spiritualize deep longings, and deny reality… OR, we can just come to Jesus – weak, needy, hurt, hungry and receive all that He is - THIS is reality. Not a quaint saying or nice thought, but the complete fulfillment of your design - your destiny. To be needy and to be filled. Filled by the very one who created, redeemed, and named you. Let Him be The Shepherd that meets all of your needs.

 Just be a sheep. 🐑

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-21).