August 14, 2026
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…” (Psalm 23)
These are some of the most familiar words in the Bible beloved by devout people everywhere. According to this Shepherd Psalm of David, the key to the real blessings of this life and the next is a relationship with God. The green pastures, still waters, table of provision, God’s blessing of anointing oil and cup that runs over all the time are all conditioned upon our relationship with God. That relationship is established in the second verse of Psalm 23 when David writes, “He makes me to lie down.”
However, the spirit in which we recall these words is often something like this: “the Lord is my Shepherd — but I have a health problem.” Or “the Lord is my Shepherd — but I have marriage problems!” Or “the Lord is my Shepherd — but I cannot control my children.”
When we say, “The Lord is my Shepherd — but” we are putting our “but” in the wrong place. We need to get our “but” in the right place and recall the precious promise of these words this way: “I have a health problem, but the Lord is my Shepherd! I have marriage problems, but the Lord is my Shepherd! I cannot control my children, but the Lord is my Shepherd!”
One way our Heavenly Father makes us lie down is to use all kinds of problems to teach us about the relationship with Him which is key to the blessings profiled in Psalm 23.
Will you let the Great Shepherd use whatever challenges you are facing to establish the deeper relationship with Him David described so beautifully three thousand years ago?
Dick Woodward, 14 August 2008
Editor’s Note: This was the first Four Spiritual Secrets blog sent out into the blogosphere in 2008. The blog posting elf treasures memories of working with her Papa to post blogs every week from that time until he passed in March of 2014. Today the Four Spiritual Secrets blog turns 18!
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 24, 2026
“I have brought you out that I might lead you in…” (Deuteronomy 6:23)
There are times when God wants to do a new thing in our lives. To do this new thing God faces three challenges. First God must get us out of the old place. That is not easy because we often love the security of where we are. God therefore has to blast us out of the old. That can happen in many ways. We could be fired, or we may just know in our knower that it is time to make a change. The call of God is often made up of a pull from the front and a boot from the rear.
The second challenge is that God has to keep us going to pull us through the transition time between the old place and the new place to which God is leading us. Transition times can be difficult!
The verse above describes the way God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt to bring them into the Promised Land. Their transition time involved crossing a desert, which should have taken eleven days. They went around in circles for forty years. They circled that desert because they did not have the faith to invade the land of Canaan. When God wants to do a new thing in our lives, do we go around in circles because we do not have enough faith to enter into the new place God is leading us?
The third challenge is that God has to make us right to settle us into the new place God has for us. One translation of 2 Corinthians 6:1 reads that we are “co-operators” with God. When we realize what God is trying to do in our lives, are we ready to give God a little more cooperation?
Dick Woodward, 24 July 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
April 17, 2026
“He leads me beside the still waters.” (Psalm 23:2)
Most people associate the still waters of David’s Shepherd Psalm with peace. However, if you research sheep, you will find when they drink from a stream of water that stream must be as still as a mirror or the water will go up their snouts. An authentic application of this still water metaphor means our great Shepherd leads us to places just suited for us.
In 1979 I resigned as pastor of a large church in a big city and accepted a call to a small church that had just begun in a small town. After being in the small church for a year I went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota due to the onset of debilitating symptoms. After nearly a month of tests, the doctor who directed my program misread my file. Thinking I was still in the large church, when he gave the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis he told me I needed to go to a small church in a small town. I told him that for a year I had already been in a small church in a small town. I was to learn to be fulfilled with doing less and doing it better.
As my symptoms persisted and confined me to a wheelchair, a group of friends helped build a house that accommodated my physical challenges. One friend made a beautiful stained-glass window by the entrance with these two words: “Still Waters.” These words have not just been a name for my home the past 26 years but also my ministry – in this location by God’s grace I have accomplished my most fruitful work for the Kingdom, most as a bedfast quadriplegic.
“Still Waters” – can you write these two words across what God is doing in your life right now?
Dick Woodward, 20 April 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 10, 2026
“And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
I shall never forget an afternoon in the late 1970s when I tried to mow my lawn and realized I was too weak to cut the grass. When I tried to replace the license plates on my car, I learned to my horror that I was too weak to do even that.
Although it was two years before I could accept the awful reality that I would never feel full strength again, my weakness made it possible to resonate with Paul in a deeper way when he described the way his weakness drove him to access the strength and power of the living risen Christ.
I have had times of such great weakness, especially while ministering from my wheelchair, when I thought: There is absolutely nothing coming from me; everything is coming from God! As God used Paul in mighty ways, he put into words what I have felt many times: “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God!” (2 Corinthians 3:5,italics added)
These were merely familiar Scripture verses until I had no strength of my own. There is a dimension of the power and strength of Christ I did not discover until I was powerless. My experience of weakness forced me to discover that the strength of the risen living Christ outweighs my weakness.
Dick Woodward, from Happiness That Doesn’t Make Good Sense
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 6, 2026
Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)
These familiar words of consolation are found in the context of a great calamity described by the psalmist. By application these words, and other words of consolation in this psalm, can be related to any calamity we experience as the people of God. The hymn writer declares this calamity to be total devastation. Amidst this devastation he exclaims, “God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in times of trouble.”
Since Hebrew is not as precise as Greek, the New American Standard Bible offers helpful alternate readings throughout this psalm. The alternate reading offered here consoles us with the thought that God is a very present help to us in our “tight places.” The helpful alternate reading presented alongside verse 10 is: “Relax, let go and prove that God is – and what God’s will is. He is God and He wills to be exalted among the nations and in the earth.”
When you find yourself experiencing calamity be still long enough to experience these realities: that God is God, that He is there for you, and that He can help you in the tight places of your calamity.
So, relax, let go, and prove Him. Then ask yourself how your response to your calamity might align with what He wills; that He might be exalted among the nations and in the earth through the way you live your life here on earth for His Glory.
Dick Woodward, 13 March 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 24, 2023
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
As I look back over my life since I was born in 1930, and born again in 1949, this verse sums up my entire walk of faith and ministry. According to the J. B. Philips translation, God fits into a pattern for good everything that happens to those who love God and are called according to God’s plan. I like this because by implication there may not be anything good about many of the things that happen to us.
But if we meet two prerequisites – if we love God, and are called according to God’s plan – our loving God will fit into a pattern for good all the events of our lives.
Before we personally apply the great promise of this verse we must meet two prerequisites. The first is that we love God. It isn’t easy to love God. The Apostle John asked us how we can love the God we cannot see. (1 John 4) We can’t hug a Spirit. Jesus told us that if we love Him we must keep His commandments. According to the writings of the Apostle Paul quoted above, we can show we love God by being called according to God’s plan.
We are so self-centered we are quick to assume that the good into which God fits all the events of our lives means our good. However, when we understand what it means to love God the only good that will interest us will be God’s good.
Dick Woodward, (05 November 2010)
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow (October 25th) is Dick Woodward’s birthday. Here’s to celestial celebrations up in Heaven with Mama & dear friends as we miss him & them here on earth!
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 17, 2017
“…but the Lord brought us out from there to bring us in…” (Deuteronomy 6:23)
God often wants to do a new thing in our lives. This strategy is profiled in Deuteronomy where we read that God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, to then bring them in the Promised Land of Canaan.
When God wants to do a new thing in our lives God has three challenges. First, God must get us out of the old to then lead us into the new thing God has for us. That’s not easy because we are often bound by security issues and don’t want to come out of the old. God, therefore, sometimes has to blast us out of the old to bring us into the new thing. That is why the will of God often involves a pull from the front and a boot from the rear.
God’s next challenge is to keep us going through the transition time between the old and the new. Transitions can often be difficult, so we need a lot of grace to get through them, especially when transitions take years of time.
God’s third challenge is to get us right so God can settle us into the new thing God has in store for us. This could happen because we are burned out in a dead-end job of an old place and God has something much better for us.
There are many reasons why God may want to do a new thing in your life. Have you cooperated, or are you cooperating, as God takes you through these three challenges?
Dick Woodward, 05 October 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 29, 2017
“When evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” … And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” (Mark 4:35-40)
I have not posted a blog for quite some time because I had a medical crisis that put me in the hospital, followed by a limited ability to work on my computer for eight weeks. This experience has reminded me of this Gospel account of a fierce storm that was turned into a great calm by a profound question asked by Jesus.
The disciples clearly believed they were all going to drown, including Jesus. The question Jesus asked was essentially: “When are you going to get some faith?” In other words, “Do you think that all I have told you about My kingdom and your part in it is going to drown at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee?”
Jesus promises to take us to the other side. When fierce storms break into our lives they will not invalidate what Jesus is doing in and through us if we will let this profound question turn our storms into a great calm.
Dick Woodward, 07 June 2012
Editor’s Note: Our hearts and prayers are with the people of Texas, especially Houston, as horrendous flooding continues.
“This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through. My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from Heaven’s open door. And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore. Oh Lord you know I have no friend like you, If Heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do…” (Albert Edward Brumley)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 14, 2017
“Thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our Father and the source of all mercy and comfort. For He gives us comfort in our trials…” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, J. B. Phillips)
Suffering can drive us to God in such a way that we make this discovery: God is there and God can comfort us.
There is a supernatural quality of comfort that can be found in knowing God. God does not want us to go through life and never discover that God is there for us and will comfort us. When you undergo a life-threatening surgery and you, completely alone, are being placed under the bright lights, remember that God is the ultimate source of the greatest comfort you can possibly experience in this life.
Many of us have known people we loved who are depressed and oppressed. They are nearly always alone and their pain is so intensely private they do not want any of the caring people in their lives to be with them.
Others believe their suffering is so personal they must place themselves in a self-imposed solitary confinement. If that happens to you, I challenge you to make this great discovery: God is there, and God can comfort you!
Father of all mercy and comfort, make me know personally that You are the source of all comfort. Comfort me in my pain. When I feel alone and depressed, may I discover that You are there, You are real, and You can comfort me. I pray in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Dick Woodward, from 30 Biblical Reasons Why God’s People Suffer
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 5, 2017
“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do£?” (Psalm 11:3)
Greek is a very precise language; Hebrew is not. That’s why we frequently find footnotes suggesting alternate readings in the margins of our Bibles when we read Old Testament Scripture passages. The NIV translation of Psalm 11:3 has such a footnote. The alternate reading suggested for this verse is: When the foundations of your life are breaking up, “What is the righteous One doing?”
Over the years I experienced several periods when it seemed that the foundations of my life were breaking up. I have found the alternate reading of this verse to be a reliable response that turned many of those crises into significant spiritual datelines in my journey of faith.
My faith walk began in 1949. Along the way I dropped two words out of my vocabulary: fortunately and coincidentally. Because I believe in Divine Providence, I no longer believe in luck. I fully agree with the spiritual heavyweight who stated, “when a devout believer thinks they have experienced a coincidence, that just means God prefers to remain anonymous.”
The Chinese characters for “crisis” are the characters for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity.’ I believe we should factor into all our crises this knee jerk response: “What is the righteous One doing in my life now?” I find that God is always up to something and ultimately it is always something very good. It is not primarily for our good but it is what accomplishes God’s good for God’s glory.
Dick Woodward, 02 July 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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