Psalm 23:4 Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me… The royal poet is putting a spiritual meaning into the various experiences of his shepherd's life; and as he once led his flock to the green pastures and by the still waters, so he ascribes whatever of peaceful happiness, his own life had known, to the kindly guidance of God. Today let us give David's metaphor a practical application to our own character and fate. No man knows what is the real meaning and worth of life till he has consciously passed through the valley of the shadow of death. All healthy life is at the beginning unconscious. The analogy of the body helps us to understand this. A happy child lives without at all thinking of life — what it is, when it begins, how it must end. One can conceive of such a life as this prolonged through manhood and old age; but there would be something less than human in its unconsciousness. And there are lives, far more frequent, which are unconscious in another way, because today they eat and drink, and tomorrow die, and never know that there is anything more in existence than this; which are below the consciousness of sin, and never rise to a knowledge of their own wretchedness. So much is common to these two kinds of unconsciousness, that they can only be startled out of themselves by a touch of pain. The consciousness of sin can alone reveal the infiniteness of duty, the pangs of sorrow make plain the depth and compass of life. But no one of us ever goes down into the valley of the shadow of death of his own accord. We are willing to live the unconscious life if we can. We know the depths that lie below, but none the less rejoice to skim lightly over the surface. By and by God comes, and with His own Fatherly hand He leads us into the gloom, and leaves us there awhile alone. There is not one of us who would not rejoice in life-long exemption from bitter bereavement, who would not, if he could, choose this form of blessing almost before shy other. And yet it is far better that God's visitation should come this way than not at all. If the soul has in it a certain capacity of education into the likeness of God, and can acquire a strength and a sweetness that were not in it at the first; if, moreover, this growth into a finer force, and symmetry is to be manifested upon a larger than any earthly scale, — then these blows of fate are not mere subtractions from the sum of happiness, and therefore to be wholly deprecated, but stages of discipline, states of training to be accepted, when they come, as part of the tuition of life. There are troubles and distresses the characteristic of which is to recall us to God from the mere external shows and shadows of life, and so out of seeming darkness to bring us into real light. But sometimes a darkness falls upon us which will not lift, and whose peculiar horror it is to rob us of the belief that there is any light at all. It may be the result of misfortune; it may come from reasoning overmuch; it may be the dizziness of the imagination. Every day men go down into this darkness, not knowing it, and able, almost content, to live in it. Can anything be so truly pitiable as to be altogether without life's divinest thirst, as never to know the desire which transcends all others, as to be wholly unconscious of the satisfaction which, once felt, is recognised as including all strength and all happiness? It would not be good for us never to go down into the valley of the shadow of death until we were called upon to make the inevitable transit from this life to another. Until we are shaken out of our moral unconsciousness by some great shock and conflict of the spirit we cannot tell what nobleness of strength, what debasement of weakness, lie concealed within us. Our faith is never firmly rooted in our hearts till we have looked out upon life and faced what it would be without faith. We never know what God is, and may be, to our spirits till we have gone down with Him into the valley of the shadow, and there in the thick darkness felt the stay of His presence and the comfort of His love. (C. Beard, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. |
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