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PSALM 23:3 “HE RESTORES MY SOUL; HE LEADS ME IN THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE.” (NKJV, KJV, ASV, ESV)
“He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.” (NIV)
“He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.” (TLB)
“He restores my strength. He leads me down the right paths for the sake of his reputation.” (NET)
In the first two verses of Psalm 23 I see a picture of me as a sheep and the Lord as my shepherd. I look up at Him leading me and realize, I have nothing beyond Him that I could want. I see myself being led here, in this life, by green pastures to lie in, by still waters and in paths of righteousness. It seems that verse three took a little bit of a turn.
In verse two I am seemingly being made to rest. Is it any wonder so many adore this pastoral, lovely Psalm? In our hectic, noisy, too-fast world, I find myself constantly in need of rest.
It almost seems like, in verse three though, we see the result of that “guided rest.” He restores my soul. Anyone who has ever experienced a peaceful, quiet, non-threatening time of rest knows how hard it is to keep…how hard it seems to return to when life demands so much of us.
Of course, if you have never felt true “soul rest,” it is obviously difficult to imagine a restoration of that rest. Especially, for those of us who have enjoyed the knowledge of forgiven sins, peaceful relationships and true joy in living for the Lord, it is easier to understand how a Shepherd can “restore our souls.”
As I have said many times in the chapters of these books, if you have never known Jesus as your Savior, I so strongly encourage you to come to Him today and let Him be Savior and Lord of your life. You cannot know true restoration of your soul without Him…you definitely cannot know restoration of a soul that has never known what restoration is. It is like looking for something but not knowing what you are looking for. But what a wonderful thing the presence of true restoration from Him can bring to your life!
It is interesting that the psalmist says He restores our soul THEN He leads us in paths of righteousness…right living. We have pointed out many times how the Lord saves us “just as we are” and then teaches us how to live holy lives. Sometimes, we want the “fish” to be clean before we can bring them to Jesus…or we want to help others get all cleaned up so they can be acceptable to the Lord. He does not work that way!
Jesus knocks at the door of our heart. If we open the door to Him, He promises to come in to us, fellowship with us and tell us how to live the type of lives that can truly bring us peace and holiness that we cannot achieve on our own.
The Lord does very much want us to live right lives…ones that glorify Him and reflect what He has done in our lives. And, He promises to teach us how to do that. We just don’t want to ever be guilty of thinking that we have to achieve that holiness before we can come to Him.
We are His sheep. He leads us…in green pastures…beside still waters. Through this, He can restore our souls to oneness with Him. Then, He keeps leading us…now, in paths of righteousness.
We really should want to be righteousness. There is that within us (He created us that way) which recognizes the need to be right, good, more like Him. If we choose to follow Him, our Shepherd, and keep living sinful, deceitful lives…if nothing has changed in us after receiving that free gift of His forgiveness of our sins…we might need to check and see if we are actually following the Shepherd.
I can’t help but think of the one sheep out of the one hundred who, somehow, managed to get lost. This was the one that the Good Shepherd left the other 99 for, to go find and bring back to the fold.
I can envision a stubborn, self-deluded little sheep who knew his way was better. Maybe he thought he was following in green pastures and along still waters, but pretty soon, he realized that somehow, he was now alone. The path he took seemed like the right way as he took it but the Shepherd and his ninety nine brother and sister sheep had gone another way.
Now, not knowing for sure where he was, maybe sensing the dangers of wolves nearby, he soon realized that he was LOST! Fortunately, One who cared for him even more than he cared for himself had been looking for him, found him lost and confused and now, was bringing him back to safety in the fold.
Silly sheep! Don’t choose to go your own way when the greatest path to follow is behind the Shepherd. You aren’t as smart as you think you are. You found that what looked like green pastures was actually a lonely, discarded path.
What you thought were still waters were deeper and more threatening than you even realized. Oh, there’s the Shepherd…He’s been looking for me all along. Follow Him today. You will be amazed at how wonderful a restored soul feels. You thought you would never find paths of righteousness again…there He is, ready to lead you along them again. All we have to do is follow.
Questions to Ponder: What distractions have the greatest power to make you forget about the Shepherd who is trying to lead you? How easy is it to forget the Lord’s power to keep you from harm when the cares of the world overwhelm you? What does restoration of your soul look like to you? Do you identify the difference between paths of righteousness and those of unrighteousness? How easy is it to wander off from the Good Shepherd? Why would we do that?
Other Scriptures to Consider: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You.” Isaiah 26:3; “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you…” John 14:27; “I will both lie down in peace and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Psalms 4:8; “In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul.” Ps 94:19; “He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of His saints.” Proverbs 2:8
 
Added teaching: I wanted to add something to this session of memorizing the 23rd Psalm. I have discussed numerous techniques to help memorize the Word in our past chapters and books. I’d like to recommend another one here.
Repetition of the verse we choose to memorize is always at the bedrock of how we achieve success. Using memory cards is a great technique for enforcing the discipline of achieving the task. Singing our verses in familiar songs helps us memorize better than many techniques.
Now, I would like to suggest a technique of visualization that has worked very well with me.
Please notice the pastoral settings that David used to praise and honor the Great Shepherd. He had to notice that the Lord often used the same techniques to guide him that he had used himself to guide sheep in the pasture.
As I prepared to memorize the first three verses of Psalm 23, I found it very useful to visualize a scene familiar to me…in my back yard. When David wrote in verse two, “He makes me to lie down in green pastures,” I imagined myself…the sheep…laying down just out my back door on a gently sloping, green-grassed yard that leads down to our pond. The pond, just a few yards away, obviously reminds me of the “still waters” that He leads me to in verse two. I visualize how this serene scene often helps me to feel my soul restored. Then, I look to the path, just beyond the dam of the pond, that I can imagine leading me in paths of righteousness as well.
Now, I know you might not have a back yard like I do. But, there are lots of parks, paths through woods and lakes and ponds that are probably available to you not very far away from where you live. Go to them and enjoy them once in a while. Use the 23rd Psalm to visualize those scenes, even as David did thousands of years ago.
It is especially helpful to visualize the scenes you experience in a sequence that helps you store those scenes in the same sequence as it comes in the verse, and the verses they represent here in your mind and deep into your conscious memories…so you can eventually find them very easy to draw up from your memory to quote them in conscious thought. An added blessing to this technique is that you can use those memories, not only to recall the Scriptures accurately, but to also bring you comfort and peace from their memories even in times when you cannot be there.
Many scenes the Lord has blessed us with around us are beautiful. Take a trip some October morning to Brown County State Park in Indiana and do nothing but view the beauty of those changing leaves on those thousands of acres of rolling hills. Go to Spring Mill State Park and sit beside the stream that flows down the hill towards the old mill below and just stop long enough to listen to nature around you. Leave the rest of your problems in life at home for an hour or so.
(My hope is that even those outside my State of Indiana will eventually read my books and be inspired by its thoughts. I know you might not be able to come to Indiana to experience these beauties. But I bet you can find a place near to you that is equal in beauty. Go there. Meditate on the Good Shepherd there. You get the idea.)
Oh, and by the way…these scenes are nothing to be compared with the beauty that the Lord has prepared for us in heaven. Try visualizing that! Use those imagined, promised places when you learn and memorize Scriptures about heaven.
I can see my mom with her feet in that cold mountain stream in heaven just like the one she experienced in Colorado. “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.” (1 Cor 2:9) Try that out and see if that restores your soul a little bit!
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