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PSALM 23:6 “SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE: AND I WILL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOREVER.” (KJV, NKJV, RSV)
“Certainly goodness and faithfulness will follow me all the days of my life, and my dwelling will be in the house of the Lord forever.” (NASB)
“Surely your goodness and love shall follow me…” (NIV)
“Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me…” (NLT)
For those of you who don’t know me, please forgive a little quirk in my personality. I tend to like to laugh and sometimes make fun of things to try to inject a little humor into them. Those who know me well are sometimes polite by only characterizing me as “a little sarcastic.” Again, sorry.
My first reaction when I hear, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me” is to picture what or who “goodness” and “mercy” look like. Maybe they are supposed to look like the two named sheep in the picture above. I have been known to go as far as making the duo a trio by including the third follower, “Shirley.”
Maybe I shouldn’t make light or fun of the way English portrays Psalm 23:6. I think I know what David was saying, but most of my life I can’t say I have seen mostly goodness behind me nor a lot of mercy being shown by many folks. Of course, that might have a lot to do with my perspective of what I see.
Most of us…even us Christians…tend to not see the brighter side of life. I think that is largely because the negative things we perceive threaten our safety and happiness and we can spend huge amounts of time trying to negate them or avoid them totally. Face it. Do you remember how good the Lord has been to you or do you focus on your struggles, issues and disappointments?
I love optimists. Supposedly, they always see the more positive side of life…you know, the cup is half full, not half empty. Most of us who might be accused of being pessimists would prefer to describe ourselves as “realists.”
The real disasters in life generally get the greatest share of our attention. How easy it is for us to lose a job, have an illness or lose a family member dear to us and quickly turn to the Lord and ask, “Lord, why is all this bad happening to me?”
It seems easier to portray David in the first five verses of Psalm 23, but question the sixth verse. We have been taught to visualize him with his sheep and see the Lord as shepherd of us as sheep like it is reflected in the first three verses. Knowing his life story with fighting the enemies of Israel it is easy to understand his description of security in the presence of his enemies. When King Saul was hunting him to kill him, we can picture how he needed comfort as he might have regularly identified with walking through valleys that could shadow the fear of death. So, how does he end up with the bright, rosy image of God’s goodness and mercy following him? Again, I bet it has a lot to do with perspective.
A very close friend of mine frequently looked at the lives of others and would say something like, “Except but for the grace of God…” The rest of that catch phrase goes: “…there go I.” I had heard that famous saying so many times that I tended to ignore what he was seeing and merely thought of it as a trite, “thing you said.”
Honestly though, what he was observing was that, looking at problems, failures and difficulties in others, he could be very grateful that the Lord loves him so much that he could have been just as miserable as them had He not kept a lot of those bad things away from him. Instead of having a laser focus on the difficulties that he also had to face, Rick could see God’s mercy and grace that prevented things from being so much worse and allowing him to suffer as badly as so many others around him had to suffer.
As Americans, we are more wealthy than 75% of the rest of the world…even if you aren’t a millionaire. Despite a lot of homelessness, the number of people who starve to death in America is so small compared to the rest of the world to be essentially meaningless. As a UPS pilot flying around the world, after we landed in Mumbai, India, you could see those on the streets who had died in the night, simply because they had no food in a nation overflowing with ungodly overpopulation…all while the hotel van was taking us to our five star hotel.
Cheryl and I lived in England for two four-year tours of our lives in the Air Force. It was kind of disappointing to watch fellow Americans go overseas on holidays and gripe (sometimes loudly) about how inconvenienced they could be by not having all the comforts of “back home.” How each of them desperately needed a missionary visit to a third world mission to get a greater appreciation of how blessed we are.
I am convinced this kind of lack of perspective in us, especially as Christians, is what keeps a lot of us from being very generous in our giving back to others. One who sees how much Jesus has done for us and given to us helps us to be more generous in helping others and giving with love. Honestly, living that way can really help a lot of us be far less “grouchy” and “hard to live with”…an honest criticism I have heard on occasions when I chose to grumble about my “tough times” when I really should have seen how the Lord held back so much that could have harmed me far more.
David’s language in Psalm 23:6 is actually, pretty poignant. The reason we often don’t see God’s goodness and mercy to us is because it is following us. The immediate “crisis” out in front of us is the issue that gets the attention. I would rather focus on the three-hour, inconvenient delay in my departure from this wretched foreign country than look behind me and remember how blessed the Lord made me to be going back to a country that exudes goodness and mercy.
Yes, we are all going to have occasions where we get sick…maybe seriously so. We forget the goodness and mercy that lets us rely on the best medical system in the world that has given us great health for decades before. Why do we think the world desires so desperately to come to America for health care. It has its problems, yes. But it is still the best health care in the world! What a blessing! What mercy the Lord has bestowed on us that we tend to easily forget.
And, probably the greatest perspective we need to hang onto, is the reminder that, as children of God, we share the precious promise that we will live in the house of the Lord…FOREVER! It is easy to not focus on our promised, eternal home. It is a concept we have no reference to relate to in all the years we live in this sin-filled, broken world. But, I find it interesting that, as we get older and approach the end of our time here, we start to focus more on it.
Some find it entertaining to make fun of how old people focus so much on heaven. We have occasionally said things like, “you are so heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good.” Isn’t it interesting that as I move into my seventies, I’m focusing a lot more on heaven now too.
I’m glad the Lord doesn’t give us all of our life experiences all at once. There is something unique about having lived through hardships, failures in life and experienced far too many of our loved ones leaving us for heaven that helps us obtain a degree of perspective that those who are younger will not see for several years yet.
The greatest comfort I get from the loss of my dear wife Cheryl is the reminder I get every day that because of Jesus, I will be with her in heaven for so much longer than this short seventy or eighty years here…that our separation now will then seem insignificantly short compared to eternity in heaven. Yes, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever…and it will be glorious.
The reminder of my promised place in heaven can let me live here like I’m kind of already there…if I will let it. It is really all about perspective.
When you are getting ready for that next medical procedure that puts fear in your heart, look behind you and be reminded of God’s goodness and mercy that has been following you for so long. When it appears that you are experiencing the largest financial loss of your life, see His mercy that blessed you with what you already have that has always been His…he was just gracious enough to let you become a faithful steward of it.
When you might again be tempted to be a little less generous than you ought to be, remember “you can’t take it with you”…which means that His grace and mercy has been blessing us for so long that He now gives us an even greater blessing to share it with others and give them love. Remember, when you walk the last mile the Lord has for you here, He is waiting just a breath away to bless you with more goodness and mercy in His house where He promises us we will dwell forever. You think about that.
Questions to Consider: Why is it easier for us as humans to focus on bad things in our lives while completely ignoring blessings we have already received from the Lord? Does “goodness” in this context just mean good things? Is the goodness that follows us also goodness or a good (God-like) nature that the Lord develops in us? Why should dwelling in the house of the Lord forever be a strong motivator for us to obey God and follow Jesus closely?
Other Scriptures to study: Philippians 2:14 “Do all things without murmurings and disputings.” John 14:2 “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Galatians 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is…goodness…” Psalm 107:8 “Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men.” Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”
 
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