You may not always feel close to God. Seasons of dryness, grief, or confusion may cloud your awareness of him. God’s presence is constant, whether or not you perceive it. Feelings do not determine reality.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. (Psalm 23:1)

In times of fear and danger—when we feel alone—we receive deep comfort from having someone walk withus. Simply knowing that another person is present can steady our trembling hearts. This was true for King David, too.

When David wrote Psalm 23, he was not relaxing in his palace, reflecting calmly on some abstract point of theology. He was facing real danger. Enemies surrounded him. His life was under threat. His “valley of the shadow” was charcoal dark. Yet amid fear, David anchored himself to one unshakable truth: the Lord was with him. He prayed, “for you are with me” (v. 4).

Like David, we must remind ourselves of God’s presence and acknowledge it in prayer. Doing so guards our hearts against both real and imagined dangers and loneliness. God’s nearness becomes a shield for our anxious souls.

As we saw earlier, Yahweh exists by himself. He simply is. That small word—is—carries enormous weight. It prompts us to remember the identity of David’s Shepherd. God is not dependent on anything outside himself. He is eternal, self-existent, and unchanging. He simply is!

When God revealed his name to Moses, he was making a practical promise. In effect, he was saying, “I am who I have always been—but now I will be this for you, and I will be with you.” In the face of Israel’s threats and fears, God pledged his active, personal presence.

David applies this same truth to his own life. The Shepherd of Psalm 23 is not distant or passive. David Gibson captures well this active care when he observes how God “makes, leads, restores, prepares, anoints, and remains with his people.” [1] The psalm introduces us to a living, working Shepherd who walks with his sheep through every season of life.

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