Psalm 23:4 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Have you ever gotten deeply lost in an unfamiliar area? You trusted the GPS a little too much and ended up in a part of town all the locals know not to drive through. It can be a harrowing experience. Or worse, you see the walls of the valley closing in around you emotionally; you feel alone or abandoned. What do you do?
The answer for both of those scenarios is that you keep going. If there is a path that led you to this place, there is path that leads out. Sometimes you need to backtrack and sometimes you need to forge on ahead. No matter what, there is always a way out of the valley. It takes effort, but we can remind ourselves that we are not alone because the Shepherd is always with us.
Even when we are afraid, we can look to the Shepherd to comfort us. When we look to him, we can see that he is not worried or afraid of what is to come. It may not be easy. It may not be fun. But any challenge that we face is a surmountable one because the Shepherd’s rod and staff are there to comfort me.
Most of us don’t have much use for a rod or staff in our daily lives. However, we can see these as all the tools a shepherd needs to care for his flock. The rod was likely an instrument to defend against predators. And the staff was the traditional shepherds crook you see that could be used to pull sheep back from danger or get them back on the path.
The good Shepherd has all that is necessary to keep us safe, even when we feel like we’re walking through the valley of the shadow of death.