PURPOSE: To help listeners be able to face the future with confidence and hope.

I. The psalm closes with the promise that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives.

The word for follow is a military word. It means "they pursue us."

David says SURELY this will happen, because what God has been to him in the past he knows that God will be to him in the future.

So the shepherd goes before him and goodness and grace bring up the rear.

David can look to the future out of the assurance of what God has done for him in the past.

He will seek the house of the Lord, which means that he will seek out God’s presence in the temple.

This has come to mean what the rest of the Bible affirms: the Shepherd will take us safe home to the other side.