When Pain Is All I Can Feel

Devotional

Pain doesn't stay where you put it.

That's the thing nobody warns you about. It gets into the morning. It sits down with you at dinner. It's there at 2 AM and it's there when the alarm goes off. And when it's bad enough, it stops being one item in your life and becomes the lens over all of it. Music sounds thinner. Conversations feel like they're happening behind glass. And underneath it you start to wonder if God can even see you through all of this.

Psalm 23 gets read at funerals so often that most of us have stopped hearing it. But David didn't write it from a nice place. He wrote it about the valley. And the reason it works isn't that it denies the valley. It's that it tells you who's down there with you.

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."

Notice what that doesn't say. It doesn't say I don't hurt. It doesn't say everything's fine. It says the one responsible for me is here, and because he's here, I won't finally lack anything I need.

That's a different promise than the one we want. We want the pain to stop. David's saying something else: the pain doesn't get the last word, because the Shepherd does.

Then look at how gentle the next lines are. "He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul."

Makes me lie down. When you're in it, you don't need somebody pushing you harder. You need somebody to make you stop. And still waters, not rushing ones, because sheep won't drink from moving water. He knows that. He picks the water you can actually take in.

Then verse 3, and there's a phrase in it that carries more than it looks like. "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

For his name's sake. Not for your consistency's sake. God's faithfulness to you in this isn't grounded in how well you're handling it. It's grounded in who he is. His reputation is attached to your care. Which means a bad month on your end doesn't loosen his grip.

Then the psalm goes into the dark part, and something happens in the grammar that I don't want you to miss.

Up to verse 4, David is talking about God. He. Him. Then: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."

You.

He stops talking about God and starts talking to him. In the darkest verse of the psalm, the language gets closer, because the presence gets closer.

And read the preposition. Through the valley. Not around it. There's no detour offered here. The promise isn't extraction. It's company.

The rod and staff aren't decorations, either. The rod is a club for predators. The staff is the hook that pulls a sheep out of a crevice. When David says they comfort him, he's not describing a warm feeling. He's saying the Shepherd is armed and knows how to use what he's carrying.

Then verse 5 gets almost defiant. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies."

Not after they leave. In front of them. God sets a full table in the middle of the threat, and the cup doesn't just get filled. It runs over.

And here's where it lands.

Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, and then he walked into the valley himself. Not the shadow of death. Death. He went all the way through, and came out the other side, and then he set a table for his people and lifted a cup.

So when pain is all you can feel, you're not being asked to feel something else. You're not failing because it's loud.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." That word "follow" is a hunting word. Pursue. Chase down. Goodness and mercy aren't waiting somewhere ahead for you to reach them on a better day.

They're behind you. They're gaining.

His face is turned toward you. Even here.