Psalm 23:3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. I tend to think of being stuck in a rut as a bad thing, but in this verse, it’s actually positive – except I’m not stuck. The word used for path in this verse is actually a track, more like a rut. Righteousness leaves deep prints for us to follow. God doesn’t sneak around leaving breadcrumbs for us to follow. He has an impact wherever He moves. These ruts are there to be seen and followed. Now, to find and follow those ruts, as opposed to tripping on them or ignoring them. Seen any good ruts lately?
Psalm 23:6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. The last few nights my little Mr. G has had a tough time sleeping. So I’ve been going in and singing to him, praying over him, and telling him Bible verses. The sad thing is that I remember so few verses. I realized the other night as I was telling him the 23rd Psalm, that I barely remembered it! In fact, I couldn’t remember verse 6 at all! Wow! Not cool. I had to go look it up after I finally got him to settle down. One thing I think I really like about this verse is that goodness and lovingkindness (goodness, kindness, and faithfulness) follow me. I’m not hunting them down or chaining them to me in order to have them in my life. They hunt me. Although, an interesting thought just occurred to me. If I’m walking backwards (rowing backwards up a stream), then they might even be “before” me since my back is to what is ahead. Either way, it’s pretty cool that they follow me and not the other way around. Where I go, His faithfulness is with me, as is His goodness. Even through the dark valleys and in the enemy’s presence. That’s pretty awesome. (Hmmmm, incidentally, I just realized I forgot verse 3, too. That one’s pretty important: He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.)