Valley of the Shadow: A Lenten Meditation

SCRIPTURE Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4

THOUGHT Walking in the valley of the shadow of death, as anyone who’s been there can attest, is frustratingly near to death, and the walker feels he or she is surely dying. But death – that final sleep, that passage to all things new – evades us, and we wake to face another un-resurrected day.

The psalmist says that the same Good Shepherd who leads us by still waters and green pastures sometimes takes us by a less favorable route. God says to his people through the prophet Hosea, “Therefore will I now allure her into the desert, and there will I speak tenderly to her.” (Hosea 2:14)

Nobody really seeks these dark valleys or barren deserts — places of extremes, where survival is urgent and a day without water means death. We would choose greener pastures over the barrenness of the shadowlands, so God must allure us there. Yet in the shadowy valley we learn more about who shadows us. We learn to fear no evil. God knows the way out – but has something he wants to speak tenderly while there is no distraction. Will we stay long enough to hear it?

PRAYER God of the valley of the shadow, and the dry, ugly deserts of our lives, be the God of comfort to us in these places too as we await your tender, resurrecting words.