“...I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me.” Psalm 23:4b

I have often wondered exactly what this part of the Twenty-Third Psalm meant. Thinking back to my own childhood, a rod and staff were not a source of comfort, rather dread, because they were used by my parents to administer needed correction to me on occasion. But then I came the seventeenth chapter of Exodus. In this story, while the people of Israel were being led by Moses around the desert for forty years, they were thirsty. Deserts are not hospitable places. No one says, “Hey let’s go and hang out in the desert for a month!” As we might expect while the Israelites were there, they ran out water, and things were looking pretty bleak. But these folks had also experienced many major miracles. They had seen the Nile turning to blood, and the parting of the Red Sea. Yet, though they had seen God taking care of their needs time after time, they didn’t go to Moses asking, “What miracle will God do this time?” Instead, they showed up at his tent door shouting, “Did you lead us here to kill us all with thirst?”

But God was patient, and instead of telling Moses to whack them over the head with his staff, he commanded him to strike a large rock. When Moses did that, suddenly fresh cool water poured out. Later on, when things began looking up, an enemy army showed up to attack them. During the battle, Moses took his staff, climbed a hill, and held it up. While he did that, Israel’s soldiers begin beating back their enemies, but when he was tired and his arms begin falling, they started losing, until his brothers came and held his hands up.

And then I thought that, just like those people, when we are in our dry places, God’s staff struck the rock at Calvary and from that source of Christ’s suffering, God refreshes our souls with mercy. And in our own desert journey when we find ourselves under attack God is not absent, He is watching over us, and lifting up the rod and staff of His Word over us. But, unlike Moses, God’s arms never grow tired. He never wearies, and no matter what we lack or are fighting, God promises to be with us. He comforts us with His rod and His staff and with His Spirit gives us victory over every enemy. Then, at the end of our journey He promises that those who are faithful to Him will be welcomed into His presence where His goodness and mercy will follow us for all eternity!