Story, Value, and Becoming More Real
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The Kindly Shepherd

January 20, 2025

Terri Moon

Why are we encouraged to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to ourselves and with others? In this column, Cultivating Songs of Faith, we explore that question by looking at one particular hymn each season, offering the story of its creation from the life of its author or composer. What you see here is a reflection rather than a formal academic history. I hope to help you to taste, see, and rediscover what is good in great hymns, and also occasionally enter into the conversation they have with ancient psalms and modern spiritual songs.

Clump, clump, clump, the muffled sound of footfall echoed in the hallway, rousing me gently. My eyelids opened slightly and I noticed the light coming into my bedroom from the kitchen. The familiar smell of brewing coffee drifted through our small house and into the room where I lay half asleep in the early hours of the morning. A sliver of pink light edged about the curtains at the bedroom window, and I pulled the covers a bit closer around my shoulders. I knew I could expect to see my husband’s shape in the doorway in just a few minutes. He always said goodbye with a quick kiss before he walked outside to his truck and started the engine. 

I pretended to still be asleep, partly because I really was exhausted from being up through the night with our new baby, and partly because I wanted to hold on to this moment of serenity. I clung to the feeling that somehow in this space where I was not really awake, I would know that even as my husband stepped out into the wide world beyond, I and all my slumbering children were perfectly and absolutely safe. 

God, my shepherd!

    I don’t need a thing.

You have bedded me down in lush meadows,

    you find me quiet pools to drink from.

Psalm 23:1-3; The Message 

The image of a shepherd is perhaps not the one that most of us in the 21st century would come up with as the ideal picture of a strong protector or a trusted guardian. But “shepherd” is the image that Jesus chose to help us trust in and believe His lovingkindness. His claim to the name “Good Shepherd” echoes the description of God’s loving, constant, and kindly care over His people found in Psalm 23. This psalm invites us to imagine the very protection and guidance we need to navigate both the real and feared hazards we know we will encounter just by waking up in the morning. 

My Shepherd Will Supply My Need is one of my favorite hymns to sing. It beautifully draws me into the picture of Psalm 23. In it I see myself as a humble sheep, often weak and wayward, under the protective care of a loving shepherd. Here I can drink from a living stream, and find myself returning to paths of truth and grace when I’ve lost my way.

The words of the hymn were written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), a man who is remembered as “The Godfather of English Hymnody.” With some 750 hymns to his name, Watts influenced the church of his day to fall in love with the Psalms, bringing them to life with his imaginative word-painting and metrical, lyrical settings. 

The melody I know for this hymn is the Appalachian folk tune “Resignation.” I love even the title for this flowing tune. It glides gently along like the “living stream” mentioned in the lyrics. This graceful melody was written by an unknown composer and first appeared in the 1835 hymnbook Southern Harmony, a collection of tunes from the rural American South. [1]

A scene in The Horse and His Boy from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis sprang into my mind when I sang this hymn recently. This happened when I came to the line in verse 2, “One word of Thy supporting breath drives all my fears away.” In chapter 11 of Lewis’ book, we find the main character, Shasta, riding an unfamiliar horse through a dark wood, lost and afraid. He thinks (and the reader is also convinced) that he is completely alone, until this happens:

Shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was breathing. His invisible companion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and Shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature. And he had come to notice this breathing so gradually that he had really no idea how long it had been there. [2]

Well, it takes a few more pages of the story before this “supporting breath” drives all of Shasta’s fears away! He first has to become convinced that this huge creature is actually protecting him, a Person of immense power and yet gentle character. He gradually finds in the patient Aslan a shepherd who is motivated by love—love that is both limitless and irresistibly kind. 

In my imagination, I could suddenly see the Shepherd pictured in this hymn infused with the character of a lion like in Lewis’ story. What kind of Shepherd would that be? It would be Someone in whom I could absolutely trust. 

Once I learn His ways, like Shasta learned the ways of Aslan, this is Someone in whom I could find a “settled rest, while others go and come.” A rest that reminds me of the days when I and my children dozed under our covers, listening to my husband’s footsteps striding down the hall on his way to work. 

My Shepherd will supply my need, Jehovah is His name;

In pastures fresh He makes me feed beside the living stream. 

He brings my wand’ring spirit back, when I forsake His ways,

And leads me for His mercy’s sake, in paths of truth and grace.

 

When I walk through the shades of death, Thy presence is my stay;

One word of Thy supporting breath drives all my fears away.

Thy hand, in sight of all my foes, doth still my table spread;

My cup with blessings overflows; Thine oil anoints my head.

 

The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days;

Oh, may Thy house be mine abode, and all my work be praise.

There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come.

No more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home. [3]



[1] You can view a scanned copy of this important book here

[2] Lewis, C.S. The Horse and His Boy, Chapter 11, “The Unwelcome Fellow Traveler.”

[3] This hymn was featured in a memorial service in September of 2001, shortly after the attacks on Washington, D.C., and New York on September 11. You can hear the choir of Washington National Cathedral sing it in this recording.    



The featured image, “Watchful Musicians,” is courtesy of Steve Moon and is used with his kind permission for Cultivating.



 

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