"He restores my soul."

We know the words. Most of us learned them young enough that we can rattle off the whole psalm forwards and backwards — which is exactly why we miss what's in it.

In this message, Pastor PJ Charles sits inside two verses of Psalm 23 and asks the uncomfortable question underneath them: if God is leading me down the right path, why does the right path run through the valley of the shadow of death?

Along the way: what restoration actually costs, the difference between being valuable and being valued, why Paul describes us as willing losers in a triumphal procession, what the Hebrew behind "valley of the shadow of death" really says, and why a seed has to be buried in the dark before it can grow toward the light.

The takeaway isn't that the darkness will pass. It's that the darkness has a purpo ...