Reading Psalm 23

One Sunday, a young boy was asked to read Psalm 23 to the whole congregation. After he finished, the whole church stood up and gave this gifted child a long and loud applause. Then the oldest man in the Church was asked to read the same Psalm. 

After he finished reading, there was dead silence. Then the sound of weeping spread across the sanctuary. People were sobbing and raising their hands to heaven. 

During the break, the boy went to the elderly man and asked for advice, "Why when I read Psalm 23, the people applauded. But when you read it, they wept?" 

The wise old man said to this curious child, " My son, you have done very well in reading the Psalm. You know the Psalm of the Shepherd well and you have read it with perfect diction and enunciation. But as for me, my voice may not be that clear, my diction poor, but after so many years of walking with my Beloved Lord, I know Him, the Shepherd of the Psalm very well."

The Shepherd's Voice

The Shepherd's Voice

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."1

I read about a shepherd from the Scottish highlands who, whenever he went out to take care of his sheep, would take his young daughter with him. The thing she enjoyed most of all was hearing her father call the sheep who always came to him. As the years passed she became a beautiful young woman and went to live in one of Scotland's great cities—Edinburg or Glasgow—to make a life of her own. At first she wrote home to her parents ever week, but in time her letters dropped off and soon she stopped writing.

Rumors filtered back that somehow she became involved with some unsavory characters. On one occasion when one of the boys from her hometown ran into her by accident, she totally ignored him. When her father heard this, he went to the city to look for her.

For days on end he looked for her. He looked in the slums, rows of houses, markets, taverns, and everywhere in between to no avail. After all of this searching he became very discouraged with the thought that he had lost his daughter to the evil city.

When leaving to return home, he remembered how his daughter always loved to hear the voice of the shepherd calling out to the sheep. "So he turned around and on this quest motivated by his sorrow and his love, he began to stalk the streets. His voice rang out the shepherds call. The citizens of the city all looked at him as if he had lost his wits. It wasn't too long as he walked the streets of one of the degraded neighborhoods that inside one of those houses, his daughter sitting among the vermin who had led her astray heard his voice. With great astonishment on her face, she heard that call of the voice of the shepherd, the voice of her father calling out to her. She leaped up and rushed out to the street and ran into the arms of that old shepherd, her father. It was then that he took her back home to the highlands of Scotland and brought her back to God and to decency and modesty."2

I wonder if any of our readers today can identify with this farm girl in that you have wandered away from God. If so, I urge you to stand still long enough to examine your life and listen with your heart to the call of Jesus, God's Shepherd Son, who is lovingly calling you to return home to him and again follow in his way.

1. John 10:27 (NKJV).
2. Adapted from a sermon by Philip Harrelson, "The Voice of the Shepherd." Cited on SermonCentral.

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Dick Innes