J.S. Park

“If Jesus really is your Shepherd, imagine if Almighty God, you could see Him right here physically walking with you. Wouldn’t you kind of want to go through the valley of the shadow of death? Just to see what He does? What we try to do sometimes is set our lives up so that even if God did lead, we’re okay if He leads us besides still waters, we’re okay if He makes us lie down by green pastures, but what about when He leads us here in the valley of the shadow of death? There ought to be this side that’s actually excited about it. [We say,] ‘Okay, this is going to be cool, I’m going to see God come through. I’m going to see this side of the Shepherd that I didn’t see before by the still waters.’ A ‘responsible’ person would say, ‘Don’t ever go through the valley. Don’t ever let your Shepherd lead you there.’ … And yet here’s this sheep going, ‘No, I’ll go through. I’m fearless. Because He’s with me. It’s actually going to be exciting to see how He comes through for me.’”

— Francis Chan, preaching on Psalm 23