goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life

That’s what God does - except when He catches you He does not give you a ticket - He gives you even more of His goodness and mercy.įaith means trusting all that God promises to be to us in Christ Jesus. It’s like you were speeding and now a police car is following you with its red light on - it’s following you in order to catch you and give you a ticket. So God’s goodness and mercy do not follow 50 yards behind me every day - they are pursuing me in order to catch me every day. It’s the Hebrew word radaph - which means “to pursue, to set off after someone in order to catch him.” I pictured me walking through my day - and maybe 50 yards behind me God’s goodness and mercy were following.īut then I learned something crucial about that word “follow.”

And those rapidly approaching footsteps you hear are not those of the Devil coming to do you in-they belong to the Holy Hunter, and they are known as the goodness and mercy of God.In the last verse of Psalm 23 David says “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”įor years I didn’t get it. Even when we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death, our great Good Shepherd goes with us. Psalm 23 tells us we have nothing to fear. Their unstoppable hounding has been the constant through “all the days” of his life. But he makes no distinction between any of these days when speaking of this relentless goodness and mercy of God. He had days of meditation on the Word of God and days of running, wondering, and even brazen unrepentance. Days of humbling obedience and days of impassioned sin. We know David had days of incredible victory and days of incredible defeat. We will find ourselves caught time and time again by a good and merciful God. God is the Hunter, and He has given chase. Like a lion hunting its prey, so the goodness and mercy of God are hounding us. The word we translate as “follow” is the Hebrew word “radap.” It means: “to pursue or chase down.” In other words, God’s goodness and mercy are not passively hanging around behind us. If I’m going somewhere with a group of people and I don’t know the way, I will say to someone else who does, “I’ll follow you.” And in the context of Psalm 23, I think we all assume “goodness and mercy” following us means something like “they will always be around” or “we’re never far from them.” But that’s not really what the text is saying. “Follow” is not a word we struggle to understand. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” - Psalm 23:6 Psalm 23 is only six verses long, but in that sixth and final verse, David says something utterly incredible-and it’s easily missed. He serves us Himself in the presence of our enemies: sin, death, and the Devil.Įvery line is rich with wonderful, peace-giving words of comfort, hope, and promise.He faithfully guides us with the staff of His Word to His gift-laden Table.He comforts us with the rod of His cross, and He uses it to defeat death.He walks with us through the desperate valley of the shadow of death.

The Lord is our Shepherd who brings us to His soul restoring Water.I have read these well-worn verses countless times but in preparation for my sermon, I was surprised at how the comforting words of David hit me as if I had never read them before… Recently, I started preaching through the Psalms of David and came to Psalm 23. They contain comforts and promises that Christians have clung to from the time of the Early Church. But these texts are well known for a reason. You also see this with John 3:16, Romans 8:28, and many others. Sometimes when a portion of Scripture is this well known, it becomes a sort of cliché or platitude. There is no Psalm as well known as Psalm 23.

Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life