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Across All Generations, Psalm 23 Are Words to Restore The Soul

by Eric Elkin

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

    He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;

    he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.”

— Psalm 23: 1-3

It is time to start cutting the Millennials some slack. Millennials have been blasted by the Baby Boomer generation for years. They call them selfish, soft, uncreative, uninvolved, and unable to cope with a changing world. Actually, I am being generous. The list of Boomer criticisms is too long to record here.

If you think about it, Millennials have been forced to cope with a lot. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is just the icing on the cake. We have asked them to accept war as the norm and not the exception. My daughter was born during the Persian Gulf War. 9/11 interrupted her last year of elementary school. One could argue, the United States has been at war her entire life.

Millennials have endured one stock market crash and now sit on the brink of another. As the economy twists and turns, they are navigating it all while carrying the burden of substantial school debt. Boomer critics say they should abandon school for the trades. Yet, many in the trades are struggling financially as well. In addition to these large scale events, their birth ushered in the fastest technological boom in human history.

Boomers, can we start cutting Millennials some slack? I would say Millennials are quite resilient. They have learned to create their own sense of community. Their dedication to family is exceptional. In many ways, they are much more capable of handling the pandemic than their parents. Millennials do well in many areas, with one exception. They are being consumed with anxiety. Given everything they’ve been forced to cope with, can you blame them?

“Millennials regularly draw ire for their cell phone usage. They’re mobile natives, having come of age when landlines were well on their way out and payphones had gone the way of dinosaurs. Because of their native fluency, Millennials recognize mobile phones can do a whole lot more than make calls, enable texting between friends or tweeting.”

— Chelsea Clinton

Today, anxiety is finding a new home in many hearts. Where can one go to find relief from it? Especially when the places we use to mask our anxiety, work, sporting events, and social gatherings, have all been taken away from us. Perhaps we can find comfort in the words we choose to read.

Every morning, I ask myself a question as I sit down to read scripture. Do the words of scripture really have power, or is it just some myth I choose to believe in? Can they create a sense of peace within, or just tease me with an idea of calm? Watching the news on television, I know words have the power to create anxiety. It only seems to make sense that words could also create peace.

If you have ever wondered the same thing, then read Psalm 23. You will discover why they are a living word. A thousand generations, more than just Boomers and Millennials, have turned to them to find shelter in the storms of life. Each generation discovers they have the power to calm our deepest fears. Then in the calm, open our eyes to the presence of God in our lives. Perhaps God knew something about the power of words.

I’ve been thinking about Psalm 23 lately on my daily walks. This is a bleak time to be outside. Everything you see is dead. The landscape is seven shades of brown, and mud has eaten all the snow. The frost lingering deep beneath the mud prevents the green grass of summer from emerging.

My walks do little to restore my soul or break the oppressive news about the pandemic. But the word of God takes me to a place I long to be, a place of green grass and calm waters. They restore my soul with a sense of Spring. The words remind me that even in the season of death, there is and will be new life.

Click to read: Psalm 23