I will fear no evil: Resting in God’s very present help

Dark, narrow path through woods toward an opening into sunlight

Following God does not mean freedom from troubles. Discouragement, betrayal, loss, danger and hardships will come. Each will threaten to eradicate rest. Some struggles may threaten to eradicate us.

When David wrote the song of rest we know as Psalm 23, he knew all that from experience.

When he sang, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” he acknowledged: “At times, I find myself trying to move forward through deep darkness and death-like gloom.”

When he sang, “I will fear no evil,” he acknowledged: “Evil is real.”

Darkness

The first person in Scripture to speak of this dark death-shadow was Job. Slammed with unspeakable grief and loss, his emotions raw and real, Job spoke of deep darkness a lot.

He spoke of it to three friends who had come to comfort him. He mentioned it for the first time in the first words he said, after they had all sat without speaking for seven days.

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He said:

“May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’ May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more; may a cloud settle over it; may blackness overwhelm it.

“What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil. (Job 3:1-3, 5, 25-26)

Evil

David and Job had reason to fear evil, for evil was intended against them.

Satan’s intent

The first two chapters of Job recount two conversations between God and Satan that resulted in the deaths of all Job’s children, raging pain in his body and other huge losses. In those conversations, Satan falsely accused Job, in hopes of inciting the Lord “against him to ruin him without any reason” (Job 2:3).

In those chapters, God may appear naïve, with regard to Satan’s ways, and complicit in great wrongdoing. It appeared that way to Job, too, and he said so in no uncertain terms.

What’s more, Job’s friends did not comfort him. Indeed, once they began to speak, they tormented and crushed him with false accusations. They railed at him when he refused to agree that he had brought his suffering on himself by doing some terrible wrong.

In the big middle of all that darkness, Job told them:

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. (Job 19:1-2, 25)

Ultimately, Job told the Lord:

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. (Job 42:3, 5)

Seeing God, Job knew:

The Lord is upright … there is no wickedness in him. (Ps. 92:15)

Satan is the evil one. He intended evil against Job. He afflicted Job, seeking to ruin him.

Still today, the Adversary, the arch-enemy of good, wages war against the one who, in God’s eyes, by God’s grace, “is blameless and upright … fears God and shuns evil” (Job 2:3).

Saul’s intent

First Samuel recounts the story of David’s most prolonged suffering, and tells us its cause.

King Saul intended evil against David, falsely accused him, defrauded him and relentlessly threatened his life. Saul did all that because God had anointed David to be Israel’s next king.

God had anointed Saul to be king too. Yet instead of seeking the Lord, trusting the Lord and enjoying all that God had designed him to be and do, Saul felt threatened by David. Saul became jealous of David. Saul resented David. And ultimately, Saul hated David. Relentlessly, he waged war against one who loved and served the Lord, and who wanted only to do Saul good.

The resentment Saul harbored is very different from the healthy anger Job expressed. Such resentment is a toxic mix of emotions that have been buried and held. The more this mix of repressed anger, fear, envy and ill will festers, the more likely it is to become all-consuming, malevolent, misplaced.

Still today, people who give themselves over to resentment count, and treat, other people as the enemy, without cause. Often, those so treated are sincerely seeking to follow God and to treat the offended one well.

Hated without cause, David ran for his life, hid in caves and lived in exile for many years, before finally seeing God’s promised rescue. In one such dark time, David wrote Psalm 22:2:

My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.

Yet David repeatedly affirmed:

The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does. (Ps. 145:17)
For you are not a God who takes pleasure in evil. (Ps. 5:4 EHV)

And David sang:

Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

Fear

We might think that Israel’s consummate warrior never felt afraid. Yet David’s story and his songs show us he did feel fear, sometimes terror, in the face of the evil intended against him. Sometimes, driven by fear, he made very foolish, very wrong, choices.

Ah, but the Lord is the good shepherd, and he was David’s shepherd.

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out … He goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. (John 10:3, 4)

The One whose voice David knew guided him in right paths – sometimes using the rod of discipline; sometimes, the staff of protection; always, offering the true comfort that both bring.

And, like Job, David remained humble. He didn’t try to hide or deny his weaknesses and sins. (He was king. He could have erased them from the history books. Instead, we’re still reading about them today.) He didn’t try to tough out the hard times in his own strength.

Instead, David let his Lord show him what he was afraid to see, and lead him where he was afraid to go. He confessed and turned when he saw that he had sinned. He kept walking even when the right way was narrow and dark and hard.

When David could not find rest, he said so. But even then, David could say to the Lord, “You are with me” – for he knew in his inmost being that it was true. As David spoke from his spirit and humbled his soul, faith overcame fear, and courage and rest returned.

That’s why he could also sing:

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.

Refuge

Many others, in Scripture and throughout time, have echoed that refrain. In 2 Corinthians 11-12, Paul described some of the deep darkness he had experienced. Then he wrote what only makes sense by the Spirit:

But [the Lord] said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:9-10 NET)

Paul also affirmed:

The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. (2 Thess. 3:3)

The sons of Korah, Israel’s singer-priests, walked through valley-of-the-shadow times too. When they did, they lamented:

Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals; you covered us over with deep darkness. (Ps. 44:18-19)

And also, by faith, they declared:

God is our refuge and strength, a help always near in times of great trouble. That’s why we won’t be afraid when the world falls apart, when the mountains crumble into the center of the sea. The Lord of heavenly forces is with us! The God of Jacob is our place of safety. (Ps. 46:1-2, 7 CEB)

Rest

Both Job and David also pressed in to God, through the bleak places where rest had vanished and all hope seemed lost. Neither man hid his confusion or distress. Both dared to say aloud what they thought and felt. But neither disowned the Lord. Both had their say, and then listened as God replied.

Through it all, the Lord remained with them. In the dark valley where they could not feel his presence, he was there – comforting, protecting, correcting, guiding. Every aspect of his very present help steered them forward on the journey, and back toward rest.

When I am in darkness and light will not come, when I feel utterly stuck in a narrow cleft, I have a choice. My heartcry is to trust the One who has said, “I am with you always.” My heart’s desire is to respond in faith to him, by his Spirit, by grace:

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will believe what I cannot see or hear or feel: You are there too. You have not left me or forsaken me. You are guiding me through the narrowest of the narrow, and out again into a broad place.

I will tell you honestly when I doubt that, when I doubt you. I will cry, as needed, “Help my unbelief!”

With the poets and the prophets, I will remember earlier times when you brought your people through great hardship, and out on the other side.

I will remind myself: The Exodus generation found themselves trapped between an advancing army and the Red Sea, and you made a way of escape.

You “guided them through the depths.” You “drew them up from the sea.” You “put within them [your] holy spirit” (Isa. 63:11-13 CEB).

“They were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord. This is how you guided your people to make for yourself a glorious name” (Isa. 63:14).

I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Lord my shepherd, you are an ever-present help in trouble. As I rest in you, as I follow you, I learn to conquer fear, and I keep walking through.

Book cover: Return to Your Rest

Adapted from Return to Your Rest: A Spirit-to-spirit Journey, © 2016, 2019.

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay

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