Psalm 23:5-6

Can you explain what you’re looking at on this slide?

You’re looking at a mushroom from an ant’s perspective! When you’re an ant:

• A mushroom looks like the Oculus in downtown Manhattan.
• A child looks like a giant troll.
• A tennis shoe looks like sudden death.
• A sidewalk looks like Broadway.

If you stood on the same sidewalk as an ant, you’d be able to see much further ahead than the ant could see. By contrast, then, you’d be able to know more about the future.

Though comparing yourself to an ant may give you a feeling of superiority, doing so doesn’t necessarily give you a true perspective of yourself in relation to reality.

In fact, you’re more like an ant than you realize. If you look towards your future, you see and know much less than you realize. What will happen tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Though you can make some educated guesses, you know almost nothing about what will actually occur – esp. after you die.

Your limited view of the future is concerning when you think about it. You can control your future to some degree by the choices you make today, but there are so many factors you cannot control, like weather, financial trends, and especially the choices of other people.

Nonbelievers try to control their future by ignoring it, accumulating wealth, trying to stay as healthy as possible, or relying on superstitious practices. Most of these attempts focus on avoiding death and have little to do with what happens after death. In the end, nonbelievers have a fatalistic view, wandering into their futures as blindly as an ant marching into a field of grass.

As believers, we have a far better outlook. We don’t have to fear our future, even if we don’t know what will actually occur in a play-by-play way. That’s because the Lord is our shepherd. We know he takes good care of us today and has done so in the past, but he also goes before us and prepares our future.

This truth should comfort us immensely just as it comforted King David. He said, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psa 23:5-6).

When we take this truth to heart, we can march into our unknown future with confidence and peace rather than fear and uncertainty. You can look at your future and hear the Lord say, “I not only know what’s ahead, but I’ve prepared for you to come. You’re good to go.” Your future has been prepared and preapproved by him.

Key Question

Are you fearful about your future or perhaps self-confident? Or are you confident in the Lord’s future care?

The Lord prepares your future in this life.

Each year in the earliest days of spring, before the snow fully melts, a shepherd would trek up to the highlands to survey the pastures. He would devote effort and time, making multiple visits, to prepare for his sheep to graze there. He’d clear out rocks and prepare sources of water to make their grazing as comfortable and refreshing as possible. He’d also remove dangers and risks to make their stay as safe as possible.

He reduces the threat of high-stakes trials.

We fear these trials the most because they’re the experiences that threaten our lives.

A good shepherd knows that not every blade, flower, root, and stem is nutritious for his sheep, but a sheep will eat whatever green blade is before him. Some vegetation in the pasture is not only a source of poor nutrition but is poisonous, as one shepherd explains:

“Unknown to me the first sheep ranch I owned had a rather prolific native stand of both blue and white cammas. The blue cammas were a delightful sight in the spring when they bloomed along the beaches. The white cammas, though a much less conspicuous flower, were also quite attractive, but a deadly menace to sheep. If lambs, in particular, ate or even just nibbled a few of the lily-like leaves, as they emerged in grass sward during spring, it would spell certain death. The lambs would become paralyzed, stiffen up like blocks of wood and simply succumb to the toxic poisons from the plants.”^[1]

A good shepherd will comb the entire pasture, step by step, to ensure he has pulled up every poisonous weed and flower he can spot. This is painstaking work, but he knows it’s necessary for the health and survival of his sheep.

A good shepherd reduces the risk not only of poisonous plants but also of predatory animals. As he walks through the pasture and surrounding area, including nearby cliffs and forests, he looks for signs of predators. These signs include droppings, feeding remains, dwelling places (burrows, caves, etc.), footprints, and bits of fur. If he spots evidence of predators that may stalk his sheep, he takes action to eliminate them by tracking down or trapping them.

He reduces the risk of other difficult experiences.

Sometimes our inner spirit can feel agitated, confused, and restless, fuzzy, and restless inside. We develop a lack of peace from irritating circumstances, an itch to sin, and perplexing relationship tensions.

A good shepherd aims to reduce not only the high-stakes threats in our future but these other difficult, frustrating experience, too. Three of these experiences a shepherd aims to minimize are fly larvae, skin parasites, and the rut.

In summer, all sorts of flies and other winged insects swarm around in the fields and make sheep restless. They’ll even attempt to lay eggs on the sheep’s moist noses. If they succeed at this, the eggs will hatch small, wormlike larvae that will burrow up the sheep’s nose and into its head, causing severe inflammation and irritation. Affected sheep will bang their heads against trees and rocks, lose weight, and produce insufficient milk for their lambs.

For sheep, summertime is also scab time. The “scab” is highly contagious and irritating. It spreads from infected sheep to the whole flock if it is undetected. It’s caused by a microscopic parasite on the skin, under the wool, and usually on the head.

A good shepherd aims to remove this threat from the pastures as well as possible, to minimize this irritation. He also learns to detect and isolate this problem as soon as possible. If it is mild, he will locate the area of skin irritation and apply a special ointment to heal the scab and prevent it from spreading.

If the outbreak is widespread, he will prepare a large bath of the ointment and dip the sheep into it head to toe. This is a very laborious and pain-staking process, but it’s necessary and is likely what David refers to when he speaks about “he anoints my head with oil” and “my cup runs over.” There is no limit to our Lord’s ability to bring peace to our lives.

Key Takeaway

Though we know that our shepherd doesn’t remove every temptation and trial from our future, we know he has removed so many more that we will never have to experience.

“No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor 10:13).

So, the trials he has not removed from our future are those he knows we’ll be able to navigate successfully with his help and guidance. Those trials that remain in our future – whether they are high-risk problems or pesky irritations – will teach us important lessons about humility and trust in him.

It’s a comforting truth to know the Lord has carefully prepared your future before you get there. Before you get out of bed tomorrow, you can know he has prepared your day before you. You don’t have to fear major or irritating problems because you know that whatever occurs, he has prepared the future before you.

The Lord has removed many trials and frustrations from your path, so, whatever you experience, he chose to not remove. Let’s learn to thank him for the trials he has removed rather than complain about the ones he’s permitted to remain.

Key Question

• Are you resting in the Lord’s preparation of your future experiences?
• Are you trusting in the Lord’s help and guidance for the trials that he has allowed?

His benefits chase after me and bless others too.

When we consider the excellent care the Lord provides for us, we can say that we experience his goodness and mercy.

• Goodness refers to all of God’s blessings, whether his moral transformation or material blessings.
• Mercy refers to his perfect and unchanging devotion, faithfulness, loyalty, and love which we do not deserve.

The way David describes this personal experience as one of God’s sheep, though, he emphasizes a few additional things:

• He describes God’s blessings not only as experiences we enjoy, but as experiences that are “chasing after” us. That’s what “follow” means.
• He describes this not as a past experience alone, but as what he knows his experience will be like in the future. Goodness and mercy “will” follow me.
• He also describes God’s blessings as an expectation for every day of his future (“all the days of his life”), not just occasional highlights.

He prefaces all these things with “surely,” which means he has no doubt this will surely be the case. He knows the character of the Lord and that the Lord will take such amazing care of him daily “all the days of his life.” The Lord will not fail to bless and care for his sheep on a daily basis. He cannot and he will not.

Key Question

• How did God bless you yesterday? And the day before?
• Is your life a testimony of occasional blessings or God’s blessings “chasing you?”

It’s easy to focus on the trials and frustrations he allows rather than on the numerous blessings he provides (and the trials he doesn’t allow).

Now, God’s blessings “chasing after me” probably carries an additional layer of meaning, too, especially since this is written as poetry that helps us to meditate on truth. This “blessing chasing after me” also reminds us that well-cared-for sheep leave their pastureland better off after they leave, not worse.

Proper grazing rotation, good weeding practices, and the sheep’s natural waste all work together to make that pasture a better-managed, well-grazed pasture for any who come behind. Sheep were referred to as “those of the golden hooves” because they were regarded so highly for their beneficial effect on the land.

Key Question

• What kind of effect do you leave behind wherever you go because of your shepherd’s faithful care in your life?
• Are the people and places of your life left in a better position emotionally, materially, relationally, and especially spiritually because you’ve been there?

Your shepherd ensures your safe arrival in eternity.

Not only does the Lord ensure his faithful blessing and care in the future of this life, but he also ensures your safe arrival in eternity. This world is a temporary journey that’s made bearable by our longing for the next life that’s coming.

When I was a child growing up in the farmlands of Indiana, I looked forward to our annual pilgrimage to Pennsylvania to visit our grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. We’d get up early in the morning and drive all day to make the 10-hr. journey. We’d load up with treats in the back seat of our Mercury Grand Marquis and would be asking the famous question 30-60 mins. into the trip, “Are we there yet?”

As silly as that question was, it kept us going one toll booth, one gas station, and one rest stop to another. After what seemed like an eternity, we’d turn off the highway, take a few turns down a twisty, uphill, country road, and pull into my grandparents’ driveway.

Those vacations were filled with good food and fun times, but there was one tiny problem each time. They only lasted a week, after which we’d load into the car with blankets and tear-filled eyes for the long journey home, waiting to do it all again a year later.

That same question keeps us going today. We follow our shepherd one step after another through the unknown roads and pasturelands before us asking, “Are we there yet?” Though we aren’t “there yet,” we know that one day we’ll make that final descent into the valley of the shadow of death, then we will at last “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

And that’s what makes that future destination so different from my childhood vacations. I’ll stay there forever – and forever is a very long time. I’ll remain in the Lord’s presence forever and enjoy the New Creation that he will make forever, which will be a perfect world brimming with God’s blessings and free from all evil and suffering.

Jesus, our Shepherd, said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions [rooms/dwelling places]; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:3).

Key Question

• How much does your safe and secure future in God’s presence and the New Creation motivate you to follow the Lord through this life?

Our eternal place in his kingdom should motivate our daily choices and perseverance through trials far more than it does. It should be such a tangible hope that we can nearly feel, hear, smell, and taste it as though it’s just over the horizon. It’s more real and lasting than this world will ever hope to be.

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[1] Phillip Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970),106.