When You Want to Run
How Psalm 23 Offers A Better Option of Rest in God
For the first time in my adult life, I was FUNemployed this summer. I took one final trip at the tail end of a summer of fun and it’s time to get back to reality. School is now in full swing and I feel the responsibilities piling up. The lunches need packed, the fall calendar needs updated and it’s time for my writing days to get the full attention they deserve each week. But leaving fun behind is a hard off ramp for me. I much prefer the packed, high speed pace of our summer - trips and friends and last minute plans and go go go go.
Only one of our kids is in elementary school so I don’t feel like I’m staring down the barrel of a fall packed with events. For the first time in three months, the next few weeks look more like rest and calm. For most people, this would be a sigh of relief, a deep breath, and well earned reward after a summer of crazed pacing. For me, not so much.
Almost 5 years ago, right after I delivered our second baby, I was feeling the most restless I’d ever felt. I was looking for real and deep soul rest but coming up empty every time. I was on a maternity leave with two babies under 16 months old and still grasping for something that felt hard to find. As is usually the case with me and the Lord, He brought me to a passage that felt rote and familiar to me. I spent a few weeks studying Psalm 23 in that season and it changed the way I view rest.
Five years later and - shocker to no one who’s walked with the Lord for any length of time - I still need reminders of the same lessons I feel like I’ve already mastered. Yesterday I had to catch a flight home from Texas after spending a few days doing ministry with church planting friends and an airport might take first place in “things that want to rob me of rest and increase my anxiety.” There’s no rhyme or reason to why my pulse picks up and I feel the need to almost sprint through a very small, uncrowded airport when I very clearly have 2 hours until my flight even boards. It’s a control issue for sure, one not made any better by any level of anxiety. But it’s also a rest issue.
This is not my first time flying. I KNOW full well that on the other side of that TSA checkpoint I will wait at the gate and then board a plane. Theologically, I reject a works-based salvation. But in practice? I’m working. I’m striving. I’m picking up the pace, to reach the plane that’s already waiting for me. I’m believing the lie that says the more I DO for Jesus the more He has to love me and take care of me and owe me.
This is not unique to me. This is what our flesh naturally does, and for good reason. In most every other area of our life, this is true. The more days we work, the more PTO we accrue. The more effort we put into marriage and parenting and friendship, the more we get in return. The more money we load into a Roth IRA or 401k, the more payout we get after we retire. The more weight we add to our bars at the gym, the more results we earn.
But, as He always does, God flips that script. The story of scripture is the one that tells us the truth - that He already did all the work and He loves us because of who He is not because of anything we could do. We can run and He’ll still be there. We can work and He’ll still have done it all. We can strive and still He’ll say “In Me you’ll have all you need.” Psalm 23 has become the perfect summation of that for me - the best reminder that I don’t have to run or strive or hide from rest. It’s His promise because it’s His nature and I need to rehearse it all my days.
Psalm 23 (THE SAMI VERSION)
The Lord is my Shepherd. He is the provider AND the provision.
I’ve got all I need. I don’t have to do anything more.
He’s the Leader AND He’s where we’re being led.
I don’t have to run from my current circumstance because He’s right next to me.
He knows where I am.
His goodness and mercy are chasing me.
He isn’t leading me anywhere He hasn’t already been. And He wants me to dwell with Him in His presence forever, starting now.