David writes from the inside of two callings — he was a shepherd boy before he was king. He is not romanticizing pastoral life; he is using the only metaphor he had for what it costs to keep a vulnerable thing alive. And he writes this psalm not as the shepherd, but as the sheep.

From the writers we read together

Brennan Manning

former Franciscan priest, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel

Manning came back to this conviction after every relapse, every shame, every failure of his own spiritual heroism. The shepherd of Psalm 23 is not the manager of a small business; he is the kind who carries lambs home on his shoulders when they cannot walk anymore.

If your week begins with the suspicion that the Lord is tolerating you, this verse is a correction. The shepherd is not annoyed by the sheep. He is provisioning them. Right now, today, before you have done a single thing worth shepherding, you are being shepherded.