By: Fred Reid
Wattup folk! I’m trying stay with the consistency of doing these devotionals so here we go! Today’s devotional is from a very popular scripture but just analyzing the words brings forth a new revelation! (well at least for me it did)
Psalms 23:4 “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”
Short Version: Don’t live as IF hard times may come, live EXPECTING them but know that God will deliver you from it!
So as the title points out notice the scripture says THOUGH I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…not IF I walk..not that big a deal right? But take a second to really think how often have we seen others and if we are COMPLETELY honest with ourselves noticed that WE too live our Christian walk as though it says if? Just to be more clear, we often live as though we fear something bad happening to us or we fear facing difficult situations when clearly the Lord has made it clear that this stuff WILL happen.
But my brothers and sisters be not dismayed (sounds real churchy huh? But it’s powerful at the same time!) for only once we face these situations do we find out that “thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”. How would you be assured that the Lord is with you unless you face something that ONLY HE can deal with. As long as there are little things that you consider yourself to be handling you can doubt whether God is truly by your side, but once it really hits the fan and you realize you could be going down because you don’t’ know what to do; then it is the power of the Father that will deliver you!
Notice also that the Father’s rod AND staff shall comfort you. I have done the research on how valuable a tool those were in the olden days but I’m sure if we did look it up it would open up this scripture even more. But I mainly want to point out how this subtly points at God doing a new thing in situations. To be clear, we face a situation and God uses the staff to deliver us a few times and we get comfortable. We face a few others and He uses the rod to deliver us and we get comfortable but when it comes times for the rod and the staff we get nervous. Real life example, you face something and you pray really hard and long about it and it gets fixed. You box God into working when you really mean what you pray. Thus when another situation comes you think I’ll just pray really hard and this will go away. But when it doesn’t you praise God really hard in church and just lose your mind jumping, running and shouting and you come out of the situation. But please KNOW that the time is coming when you will need to pray really hard AND praise really hard to get out of a situation! Don’t be nervous or discouraged when your old approach to things doesn’t work, it’s time to combine the rod and the staff!!
We can’t lose folk! We have the trifecta not only of the Lord being with us, His rod and His staff, but also the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost living INSIDE of us. Plus all of heaven supporting us, plus the angels, plus the power God has given us to speak things into existence. So when you think about it these situations we face are just OPPORTUNITIES for us to trust God more. For us to dig deep and find out what He has put inside of us, and even better for us to find out more of who He really is! So don’t avoid your “valley of the shadow of death” or you’ll be avoiding the new things God has for you. Wow…thank you Holy Ghost
Over and Out J
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