Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 23-31

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I feel challenged by today’s passage because it starts with the 23rd Psalm, which is a great classic, but how do I keep from letting it dominate the other psalms in today’s passage.  I thought about skipping over Psalm 23.  However, as I gathered my thoughts they kept going back to the fourth verse: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;”  The translators’ notes say that “the valley of the shadow of death” could be translated as “the valley of deep darkness.”  My thought on this alternate translation is that sheep would fear dark valleys because predators could be lurking in the darkness waiting to pounce, but that the shepherd would be there with his rod to strike a predator and his staff to block the predator from getting to the sheep.  In the next psalm the psalmist reminds us that if we wish to seek God we cannot speak deceitfully and must not lift up that which we know to be false.  If we want to enter into God’s presence we must have clean hands and a pure heart.  We must not lend ourselves and our actions to harming others, or to leading them into sin.  The psalmist reminds us that our ability to do those things is a gift from God, that any righteousness we possess was given to us by Him.

Which brings me to the 25th Psalm, where the psalmist asks God to teach him His truth and to lead him on God’s paths.  Then the psalmist reminds us that we must be humble if we want to be lead and taught by God.  The psalmist acknowledges that his guilt is great and only by God’s mercy can it be forgiven.  If we wish God to guide our decisions and if we desire His friendship we must fear Him.  I struggle with truly fearing God as much as I believe that I should.  I believe that is a common problem in our society.  I think we fail to understand how truly fearful it is to be in the presence of God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.