In episode 7 of the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, host Greg Ryan delivers a devotional monologue on Psalm 23. Speaking from memory, he emphasizes the importance of internalizing Scripture and encourages listeners to memorize the Psalm. Greg interprets the closing line, “goodness and mercy shall follow me,” as two distinct spiritual beings—Goodness carrying a water bucket and Mercy wielding a garden hoe—who trail the believer, tending to the seeds of actions the believer sows. He links this imagery to the biblical seed‑time and harvest principle found in Mark 4:26, describing how good seeds are watered and bad seeds are dug up, leading to eventual harvest. Greg further connects the Psalm to the Good Shepherd motif, identifying Jesus as the leading I AM (the Good Shepherd) who guides the flock, while Goodness and Mercy follow behind. Throughout, he weaves references to John 1:1, the seven I AM statements, and personal reflections, urging listeners to let the Psalm bring peace, to picture these spiritual helpers, and to trust God’s timing in the kingdom of God.
Welcome to episode 7. After today, I will have been at this for one week. I know you probably don't care, but it's kind of a big deal to me. Well, you know how it begins in John, the Gospel of John chapter 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and cue intro guy.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 7, and in this episode I'm going to break down a popular, very popular psalm, Psalm 23. And really, I'm going to go from memory because one of the things that I want you to to get out of all of this is that you have to put the word of God into your heart. You've gotta— you don't have to memorize everything, but you, you do need to have it with you, walking around with you, so you don't have to whip your Bible out every time something gets you down, or if you start feeling a little fear or doubt or unbelief. But Psalm 23, there are— I found two spiritual beings, and I, again, I've got to tell you, I kind of got to see everything, and I may see it a little different than you and it just helps kind of— I try to flesh up the Word of God, and so I kind of try to picture what's going on. And as I read this, and I'm not gonna read it, I'm gonna go by memory and how I see them in my spirit as I'm reading it. So let's dig into Psalm 23 by my memory. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul: he leads me on the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil: for you are with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies: you anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall live in the house of the Lord forever. I almost feel like I need to say amen, amen. But I love that Psalm, and it's a very popular Psalm, but I want you to picture in the very end where it said, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And when I saw that, I see, and I just want to tell you just as a teaching, I see goodness and mercy. It's following behind me. And one of the questions I had, I asked God, was, why, why are they following me? Why aren't they out in front of me? And I don't know if you've ever thought about that. I don't know that you've ever seen these two guys walking behind you, but I see goodness and mercy following behind me because that's what the word of God says. So I've got Mercy, and if you can picture Mercy with a garden hoe, and I've got Goodness with a water bucket. And so they're following behind me, and every step I take, you know, everything you do in life, you know, you're planting seeds. You're either planting good seeds or bad seeds. So as you take steps, you do things, you do nice things and you do bad things, or whatever it is you do, You're planting seeds. And I believe this is an important lesson in life because you— the kingdom of God. Jesus in Mark 4, and I think it's 4— let me, let me get to it real quick. It's 4:26. And he said, the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow He himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. So if you take the kingdom of God, and I'm going to translate that, and as God's way of doing things, and God said in, in the beginning, after I think it was after Noah got off of the ark that he said that, you know, that this will remain seedtime and harvest. There is going to be, you know, we've got the four seasons and we've got seedtime and harvest. So the way God gets things done on this earth is by seeds. You plant a seed. And that is one of the reasons and why I'm so fired up about this podcast is because this is— I have planted this seed in the ground and it is— something's going to grow out of it. I have no idea what God is going to make of this, but I'm just going to be faithful and just try to present to you what it is that God lays on my heart for the specific day. And Psalm 23 was what I was— I mean, what I kind of— I didn't even read that in the last week or so, but I— it kind of came to my mind this morning, and so I thought I'd talk about it. But the two— let's get back to the two beings, the goodness and mercy. So I've got mercy with this hoe, this garden hoe, and I've got goodness with this water bucket. And as you're throwing out seed in your life, when either physical or emotional, social, financial, those seeds that you throw out, well, you're going to have a harvest because God's put it in place. And it's seedtime and harvest, and I see Mercy— if you throw out some bad seed, I see Mercy back there with his hoe kind of digging up that seed trying to spoil the harvest. And then I see Goodness back behind you as well. When you throw out good seed, he is watering the seed and kind of nurturing the seed to try to get it to grow. And I don't know about you, but anytime it seems like I throw out bad seed, it seems like that stuff grows up quicker than the good seed. And I don't know if that's true, it just seems like it's true in my life. But I want to— I want you to kind of picture these two beings. And I don't know, I mean, again, this is just my way of looking at when I'm reading the Bible and kind of trying to picture it and trying to make— I want to try to give you a handle, something when you read it to maybe go back and go, oh yeah, because if you've ever thought— because I did, I asked God, I said, why are they following me? Why aren't they out in front of me? Why isn't Goodness and Mercy out there blazing the path or blazing the trail? And, and this picture kind of works for me. So I've got these two spiritual beings following. It says, Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I've got the Good Shepherd who is leading. The shepherd leads you. So Jesus is out in front, and Jesus is leading if you'll listen. And he says that my sheep hear my voice. You know, there's 7, 7 I AMs in John, and he— one of the I AMs is I AM the Good Shepherd. He, he's also the Door and the Bread and the Vine and the Way and the Truth and the Life. And the, uh, light of the world. And I think the last one is resurrection and the life. But I wasn't even prepared to talk about that. But there's 7 I AMs in John, the Gospel of John. But one of them is the Good Shepherd, and Jesus is leading you. So if you'll let Jesus lead you, then he will, he will lead you down the path. And then it says, you know, the Lord is my shepherd. That's the beginning. And it talks about all the things that, that Jesus is doing for his sheep. And it's a wonderful psalm, and it's, it's supposed to give you, should give you peace in all of this turmoil. You know, you got all this angst, you got all this fear and hate and division, and it— I thought it would just be nice just to, to reread that. I did not read it, but I want you to go back and, and read Psalm 23 when you get a chance and, and just kind of just let that just, just let that go over top of your spirit and just kind of let it just bring that peace that, that King David had when he wrote that. And so I hope that helps. I'm going to try not to be so long-winded, you know. I tend to ramble on, and I want to respect your time, you know. I kind of want to get in here and, and kind of give you an idea for the day and then let you go on about your way, because I know you're busy. And you probably got other things to do and listen to, but I just want to thank you for being a part of this. We may elaborate a little bit on this. I, I did a— I think I did a little video on this one time. I'll have to go back and see, but I've taught on this before. But I think this, to me, this, this picture of goodness and mercy kind of sits pretty good with me and, and why he follows and it falls into the seed time and harvest. So, you know, I, I hope this helps. It helped me a lot when it— when I had this understanding. And I want to thank you again for listening, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
