Most of us read Psalm 23 and imagine the valley as a short stretch of road leading somewhere better. We assume we're simply passing through.

But some valleys aren't short.

Some stretch beyond the horizon.

Most people can endure a crisis for a season. Very few can sustain that pace for years. Yet many burdens last far longer than we expect. Caregiving, chronic illness, grief, disability, loneliness, and countless other hardships often remain long after we've exhausted our plans for escaping them.

Scripture never promises that God will remove every frightening, uncomfortable, or painful circumstance simply because we dislike it. In fact, when Israel found itself exiled in Babylon, God instructed His people to build houses, plant gardens, raise families, and seek the welfare of the city where they lived.

Why?

Because they were going to be there awhile.

God wasn't abandoning His people. He was teaching them how to live faithfully in a place they never wanted to be. Before promising them a future and a hope, He instructed them to unpack.

That truth has become increasingly meaningful to me.

For years, I kept waiting for life to settle down. After the next surgery. After the next hospitalization. After the next crisis. Eventually, I realized I was waiting for a train that wasn't coming.

More than forty years later, the valley stretches farther than I ever imagined.

Yet so does God's faithfulness.

That is why one verse in Psalm 23 has taken on fresh meaning for me:

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies."

Notice what David does not say.

He doesn't say the enemies disappear.

He says God prepares a table in their presence.

The Shepherd does not always lead us around the valley.

But He always feeds us in it.