Psalm 23

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.”

I was reading this once and the Lord opened my eyes to see something I had never noticed before.  I love how in verse 3, it starts out, “He restores my soul” and then right after that,  David says he “leads me in paths of righteousness”.  Then he goes into the part about God leading us through the valley of the shadow of death! Wow! Do you see it? This is the part God revealed to me.   He restores my soul by leading me through the valley of the shadow of death!  Yes!!!!! Sometimes,  He will lead us in paths that lead to green pastures and peaceful streams.   I definitely can see how that can refresh our souls but what if trials we go through and difficulties we face are meant by our Savior to do the very same thing? I believe they are. I heard a pastor once say problems refresh us! What if we changed our mindsets from “Lord,  get me out of this!”,  to “Lord thank you that you are restoring my soul!”.  God has a bigger picture we can’t see it yet but there is a purpose in the valley, and one of those purposes is to refresh us! The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall never want! He restores our soul.