Rod and Staff

We often define protection as safety from difficult circumstances—asking God to keep us from bad diagnoses, broken relationships, or financial loss. But Psalm 23 reframes our understanding of safety. Following the Good Shepherd does not mean avoiding the valley; in fact, the path of righteousness often leads right through it. The valley represents the unavoidable hardships of life in a fallen world. When we try to control outcomes or carry the weight of an uncertain future, we fall into a kind of functional atheism where anxiety takes over, imagining a future without God in it.