Beside Still Waters

Last night I was meditating on Psalm 23 as I was falling asleep. I didn’t get very far – the phrase “He leadeth me beside the still waters” caught my attention.

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but “still waters” always makes me think of calm, peaceful circumstances. Not the wild, raging, storm-waters that so often make up our lives, but orderly, peaceful, everything-makes-sense happenings.

My life isn’t like that. It doesn’t make sense. Often there are storms, misunderstandings, difficulties, illness, and pain.

But the longer I thought about it, the more I was sure that David couldn’t have meant the still waters of circumstances. What was he talking about? When he was left to watch the sheep and had to kill a lion and a bear? Or maybe when he was in the palace and Saul tried to pin him to a wall with his spear. Running through the wilderness for his life? Scrabbling at the gates of the enemy? Returning from a battle to find wives and children gone and his own men wanting to stone him? Bringing the Ark to Jerusalem and having God strike his servant dead? Fleeing from his rebellious son?

Really, I couldn’t think of a time in David’s life when all was smooth sailing. He was known as a ‘man of war’. He spent years as an outlaw. The one period of his life that could have been golden he smeared with the sin of Bathsheba. His own sons tried to take over the kingdom. His subjects cursed him. His wife despised him. No ‘still waters’ of circumstances here. David’s was not a ‘happily ever after’ story.

So what did he mean? I think the secret can be found in the story of Ziklag when David returned from a successful campaign only to find that the enemy had struck in his absence. We read there that “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”

David had a source of ‘still waters’ that was not dependent on outward circumstances. He had a place where he could go, no matter what was going on in his life, and find peace and calm and refreshing.

Oh, that I would learn the secret of the ‘still waters’!

Tags: contentment, happiness, peace, trust