What do you do when life knocks you off-balance? Or when a major blow does not simply disrupt you, but seems to level you?
In those moments, what rises up inside of you before you even have time to think? What happens to your inner dialogue? What dormant alert systems suddenly come alive and begin blaring instructions: protect yourself, defend yourself, run, hide, control, numb, accuse, despair?
What fear, anger, shame, or sadness begins to speak louder than the voice of the Good Shepherd? Where does the voice of the enemy try to take you — back into a past you cannot change, or forward into a future you cannot control?
Part of our life in Christ is learning to notice these voices. Not to be ruled by them, not to hate ourselves for having them, but to bring them into His light. This is part of what it means to be formed as whole disciples: people who are alive to the Spirit, rooted in the Gospel, and shaped by the rhythms of worship, prayer, Scripture, and community.
I once heard someone describe Psalm 23 as a psalm of God-in-Real- Time, because so many of the verbs are in the present tense. Let me show you what I mean:
The Lord is my shepherd — here and now.
He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside quiet waters — not someday, but in the present moment, today.
He restores my soul and guides me in paths of righteousness — from the very place where I am standing right now.
He is with me even in the valley of the shadow of death.
His rod and staff comfort me in the middle of the darkness.
He prepares a table before me and makes my cup overflow.
These are present-tense realities. This is not just what God once did, or what God might do eventually. This is the attention of the Good Shepherd in the middle of our actual lives.
The few verbs that shift tense are just as important:
“You have anointed my head with oil.” This is a past action. The Good Shepherd has already acted. He has already marked, blessed, and claimed His sheep.
“Goodness and lovingkindness will follow me.” We cannot see the future, but we are promised that whatever the future holds, the love and mercy of God will be there.
“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Our final dwelling place has already been determined.
This is God in real time: present with us now, faithful behind us, and already holding what is ahead.
But many of us have another psalm written in our heads and engraved into our memories. It often comes alive in moments of pain, pressure, disappointment, or fear. David Powlison called it the Anti-Psalm 23. And unfortunately, many of us know it — or parts of it — very well:
I’m on my own.
No one looks out for me or protects me.
I experience a continual sense of need. Nothing’s quite right.
I’m always restless. I’m easily frustrated and often disappointed.
It’s a jungle — I feel overwhelmed. It’s a desert — I’m thirsty.
My soul feels broken, twisted, and stuck. I can’t fix myself.
I stumble down some dark paths.
Still, I insist: I want to do what I want, when I want, how I want.
But life’s confusing. Why don’t things ever really work out?
I’m haunted by emptiness and futility — shadows of death.
I fear the big hurt and final loss.
Death is waiting for me at the end of every road,
but I’d rather not think about that.
I spend my life protecting myself. Bad things can happen.
I find no lasting comfort.
I’m alone … facing everything that could hurt me.
Are my friends really friends?
Other people use me for their own ends.
I can’t really trust anyone. No one has my back.
No one is really for me — except me.
And I’m so much all about ME, sometimes it’s sickening.
I belong to no one except myself.
My cup is never quite full enough. I’m left empty.
Disappointment follows me all the days of my life.
Will I just be obliterated into nothingness?
Will I be alone forever, homeless, free-falling into void?
Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”
I have to add, “Hell is also myself.”
It’s a living death,
and then I die.
—David Powlison
The purpose of naming this anti-psalm is not to move us toward self-hatred. It is to bring into the light the hidden scripts that often operate beneath the surface of our lives.
Because when we can see them, we can begin to question them.
And when we can question them, we can bring them to Jesus.
And when we bring them to Jesus, the Good Shepherd meets us there — not in theory, not at a distance, but in real time.
This is the kind of life we are invited into: not merely learning ideas about God, but becoming people whose instincts, desires, fears, habits, and imaginations are slowly re-formed by the living presence of Christ.
We bring the whole of ourselves before Him: our fear and our anger, our shame and our sadness, our false narratives and our survival strategies. We bring them to the Good News, where we remember that we are not our own shepherds. We bring them into the life of the Spirit, who searches, comforts, convicts, and heals. We bring them into the liturgy of the Church, where week after week our bodies and hearts are re-trained to confess, receive, remember, give thanks, and be sent.
Wherever we find ourselves today — in green pastures, beside quiet waters, in the valley of deep darkness, or overwhelmed and thirsty in the wilderness — Psalm 23 calls us back to the Good Shepherd.
He cares for His sheep.
He lays down His life for them.
He calls them by name.
He does not lose any who belong to Him.
He is God in real time: right here, right now, with you and me.
He is not leaving. He is not forsaking. He is leading, restoring, comforting, and forming us — for our good, for the life of the Church, and for His glory.
