Safety Last
Psalm 23
The storm lets loose and the thunder roars and the next second the house echoes with shrieks of terror as children dash down the hallway and leap into their parent’s bed. The storm rumbles on, but they’re safe now with mom and dad. Parents do what it takes to keep their kids safe—even protecting them from threats they don’t see. Car seats, helmets, child-proof caps and outlets, gates on the stairs, vaccines, and monitors—whatever it takes to keep kids safe.
But the pursuit of safety doesn’t stop with kids. We all want to feel safe. We willingly pay more for a safer car. We have panic buttons on our key fobs, and carry pepper spray so we feel safe when walking to our car in the dark. We endure the inconvenience of unpacking carry-ons and taking off shoes and belts and watches and coats and even being patted down all to feel safe when we fly. We invest in doorbell cameras, deadbolts, and home security systems—all worth it to feel safe. We buy all sorts of insurance. We stock up on hand sanitizer and cringe when people invade our space. Whatever it takes to feel safe, whatever brings security and comfort and assurance, that’s what matters.
I wonder if our longing for a sense of safety and security is one of the reasons for the widespread and enduring love of what is undoubtedly the most famous of all the psalms. People love Psalm 23. I think it might be because it generates such wonderfully comforting images and feelings. Fluffy, languid sheep scattered in a verdant green meadow with the waters of a placid crystal-clear lake lapping nearby and standing guard—a sturdy shepherd with a hefty crook: that’s a picture of safety and security to put a soul at rest. People love to feel safe and secure; and the Good Shepherd watching over them provides exactly what they need. Like a child snuggled in his mother’s arms, Psalm 23 makes people feel safe. And, that’s what matters. Safety is the priority. Safety is the goal. Safety is – the god?
It’s a question worth considering. What exactly is the most important thing? I think that for a lot of people, at bottom, the priority is pretty clear: their health, their wellbeing, their happiness and feeling of tranquility, their security, their safety—that’s number one. That’s their god. And even the Good Shepherd, even the only true God gets pressed into the service of propping up the false god of safety. Psalm 23 becomes one more tool in feeling good, feeling secure, feeling safe.
It doesn’t work, though. You can’t buy safety. Oh, for a while you can probably pull it off. But, eventually, it all fails, eventually it all crumbles, eventually the evil you fear and dread finds you and takes you. No castle wall can keep the killer away, no vaccine can stave off the inevitable, no money can buy a way out of the danger. Relentlessly, steadily, ruthlessly death keeps following, keeps hunting, and keeps winning. It’s out there. It’s stalking its prey. No one is ever really safe.
It doesn’t really matter if you feel safe for a time – no matter how you feel, the truth is, you are neversafe. Suffering and death can claim you at any moment. An earthquake, a heart attack, a bullet aimed or errant, a distracted driver, a persistent microbe—you’re never safe. You’re never in control. It all always, finally, ends badly. It doesn’t matter how it feels. Feeling safe does not mean you are safe. And no one is safe—not even the person who cherishes and clings to that wonderful, Bible-based, Psalm 23-feeling of heavenly security and safety. Even that feeling can be reduced to nothing but a false god. You see, safety is not the goal. Safety is not God. Safety is little more than an idol that syphons worship and devotion away from our Triune God.
The Triune God, you know, is not safe. CS Lewis was exactly right in the Chronicles of Narnia when he made his Christ figure, Aslan, a rather threatening, unpredictable, and thoroughly terrifying lion. There’s nothing safe about God. He is almighty, all-knowing, all-encompassing, holy, and utterly just. He does what he wants as he wants when he wants. He’s not safe. But he is God—the only God. And when you make feeling safe and locking-down security your top priority and your cherished ideal, you are actually driving out the unsafe and dangerous real God. The God who is, in fact, the only hope and the only protection from the evil that stalks you. God is not all that interested in sentiments of, and the Psalm that celebrates the work of the Good Shepherd is not intended to give you good feelings of comfort and assurance. Far from it. Psalm 23 is not about a way to feel good and safe. No, Psalm 23 is about the way for you to live life in tune with God.
One of the great threats to your Christian faith is your love for feeling safe. Pursuing safety will keep you from following Christ. You need to kill that idol. God does not offer you a stroll down the path of safety – He offers the way of the cross. Psalm 23 does not hold out a feeling of security. No, the Good Shepherd offers you the way of righteousness that follows what is almost certain to be a terrifying path. That’s the point of Psalm 23. It’s a picture of the challenge of the Christian life...and, yes, no doubt, a picture of the joy of the Christian life.
It’s true, and it’s not to be forgotten that God, our God, our Shepherd, is not safe. But, as CS Lewis also made clear, he is good. Aslan is good. God is good. Our God is our Good Shepherd. He will lead you in ways that are dreadfully hard – ways that will demand so much more from you than you ever thought you could do. It is so very hard to learn to die to yourself and your dreams and desires. It hurts! But that’s where your Good Shepherd leads.
He will lead you all the days of your life in ways that may shock you and scare you and shake you to your core. And your Good Shepherd will lead you, at last, to his quiet pasture and to his table where he will feed you and give you not a fleeting feeling of safety, or a saccharine sense of security; no, he will give you the real deal: eternal safety, eternal peace that does not end, and joy – unimaginable joy – in his presence, forever.
You’re His sheep. That’s your future: an everlasting banquet spread out before you and a place set at God’s own table with your name on it. That’s where your Good Shepherd leads you.
Despite their best efforts to prove the contrary – all people are sheep. Every single human is just a sheep trying to stay alive, trying to figure out how to survive. Those who do not follow the Good Shepherd can only hurry and hide and plan and provide and try in vain to evade the evil that they fear—the evil that stalks and always finds them. Every sheep is being stalked.
Yes, even those who follow the Good Shepherd, even you who follow the Good Shepherd you also are being stalked. It’s true. But it’s not evil and death that stalks you. No, your risen shepherd has taken care of that already. You are God’s sheep and you are being stalked by God’s goodness and God’s mercy. Right now, they’re stalking, following you all the days of your life. It doesn’t get any better than this, people. You follow where you shepherd leads—even through the dreariest days, the darkest doom, and the most dreadful terrors—you follow your Shepherd; and right behind you follows the Shepherd’s goodness and mercy. You are being stalked by grace. You are being stalked by God.
While you’re busy following in the tracks of Jesus, he’s busy tracking you.