Friends: We don’t have to want something when we already have it … as a gift. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #1040

October 20, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

“… I Shall Not Want”

By Bob Walters

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” – Psalm 23:6 ESV

The structural center of David’s Psalm 23 (verse 4) reads, “for you are with me.”

Jesus promises, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).

Jump to Romans 8:31, Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Here in God’s Word, we see the faith of David, the love of Jesus, and the hope of Paul. God, we can be assured, is with us: He follows us, He leads us, He pursues us.

All we have to do is look to see if God is there.  He is … and He is Jesus.

And He has been very close to us – personally – lately.

My wife Pam and I have been going through a bit of a health “season” these past five months. Well, her more than me, but we are in it together. And Jesus is, too.

Pam woke up May 27^th with upper left leg nerve pain so severe she was unable to walk. The emergency room doctor said it was sciatica. The chiropractor said “I can’t help you, go get an MRI.” The spine PA said, “it has to be a spine issue.” The pain specialist ordered, and sensing danger then cancelled, a spinal pain block. Two different neurology offices declared Pam’s case as “interesting.” Five MRI’s and a spinal surgery later (plus draconian physical therapy, two epidurals, a hip steroid shot, various pills, and blood work), we have ideas but no diagnosis and a train of baffled doctors and providers.

Throughout, Pam has been able to stand for short periods, take a few, slow, halting, painful steps, and blessedly, sleeps soundly, albeit in a pillow-laden reclining chair. She teaches, planted in a tall seat, and gets around school on a red scooter we named “Mario” (as in Andretti, not Kart). The MCA staff and students are amazing: caring, helpful, prayerful, and good-humored about Pam’s current mobility challenges.

I’m saying all this not as a plea for pity but as a witness to God’s closeness and Pam’s faithful steadfastness. Perfectly timed, Psalm 23 popped up this week in my Ray Stedman devotional emails. “Goodness and mercy ... follow[ing] me” got me to thinking.

We all have our “default” setting of how we read scripture and what various verses mean.  It is the strength of the Bible that it can be so all-encompassing and at the same time be so personal.  I have always read “follow me all the days of my life” as though it meant God would stay with me as I aged.  Well, I am old, I guess (so is Pam), but the abiding presence of Jesus is not about our latter days; it is about every day.

This challenging season has emphasized closeness to and trust in Jesus, not distance or disappointment. Hebrew literary structure often locates the main point in the middle of a passage, not at its beginning or end. Knowing that structure dramatically expands our understanding, for example, of Paul’s letters. In the 23^rd Psalm, the important Hebrew middle reads, “for you are with me.” God sent Jesus to “be with us.”

I’m not sure I had previously noticed that this “Psalm of David” models exactly the presence of Jesus in humanity and our salvation in His sacrifice. Jesus gives us what we need, and we know it, as long as we are at his side. We may “want” only healing; but Jesus strengthens our faith and assures our hope. It is not always easy.

This is indeed the “age” of Jesus, all 2,000 years so far. And despite that which is demonstrably against us in this world – sickness, sin, despair, disappointment, whatever – trusting the divine presence of our Creator, our Savior, and the Lord of all truth and goodness, molds the daily, sustaining strength and courage of seasons such as these.

We don’t have to “want” it because in His grace, we already have it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) (Pam) notes the on-going power of prayer, as the best medical efforts, so far, have been generally ineffective while the prayer of friends and family has sustained her – and us – massively. Nerve block this week … we’ll see.