"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." - Psalm 23:4

We all remember this verse of scripture, at least if we were go to many funerals. But when a person really searches the meaning of what David wrote we will find that this scripture is for the living, not the dead. In this devotional we will bring encouragement through this verse while explaining it, and bringing to light what David was really writing. To do this we will be breaking down the verse and exploring the context of some of the words.

'Walk through' has a simple definition. These words refer to going through from one end to the other without going to the left or to the right: going straight ahead. In this one would have to face any obstacle in the way head on before continuing the walk through the valley.

This goes along with the word 'valley', which means in Hebrew a narrow gorge with high sides. Picture yourself in this valley. It is a narrow valley, or gorge, that has sides too steep to climb. Going through a place like this can cause a certian amount of fear to stir within a person because of the unknown that may lay ahead.

Now we come to 'the shadow of death'. If there is a shadow of death then the person in the valley is still living, shadow as refering to things in the gorge that is lurking to devour. The shadow is the shade of death, or the grave. Fear in Hebrew means the natural: being afraid, dread. The writer states that even though he is walking through the valley of the shadow of death, he wasn't going to be afraid. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7 that we should not have the "spirit of fear". When we seem to be walking in those valleys: "do not fear those things that lay ahead".

"I will fear no evil". Evil means adversity, misery, sorrow, trouble, harm, distress, affliction, vex, and wrong. Sometimes we need to learn to spaek wrods such as: I will fear no evil. In our vcalley we might come up against sickness, disease, addiction (affliction). Our nerves might get out of sorts if, for example - the finances are not being met (distress). People may be telling us we can't change (adversity). Did you ever feel like something bad will happen? (harm). At times we just feel low in the spirit (misery). And we can go on. These are mentioned so we can relate some things that come upon us from time to time to this scripture.

"For thou art with me" is the Lord. Never forget that our heavenly Father is always with us. Sometimes He uses a rod, which in Hebrew, means a stick for punishment, ruling, fighting, etc. Did you ever feel that God was correcting you, or maybe just keeping you from going too far to the left or right? Our heavenly Father also has a staff, which is used as a support. We should always know that God has a staff for us to lean on for support and comfort.

Paul states in Romans 8:6 this: "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." If we try to walk through our valleys without being spiritually minded we are very mcuh subjected to becoming carnal in our thinking and this will hinder us from our walking completely through our valleys and come out the other side. If we are not spiritually minded then the flesh conquers us and we never completely walk through the valley and emerge from the other side.

One last piece of encouragement is this: Proverbs 18:21, which states that death and life are in the power of the tongue. There are so many times when our own tongue places us in the valley that we dread. From this point on in our lives let's follow Solomon's words in Proverbs: wise men say little.

It is our prayers that the Lord will keep you blessed.

Bishop M.D. Baughman

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Don't Stop in the Middle of Your Valley: ©Copyright, SWHM/Baughman Media Group-2009