Episode notes
Some books take a year to write. The Shepherd's Journey took over forty.
In this opening episode, author Gerhard Kock sits down with Dave to unpack how a single passage — Psalm 23 — became the companion of a lifetime. It started when Gerhard was sixteen, newly come to faith, and one Psalm gripped his heart more than any other. What began as a favourite passage turned into a decades-long conversation with God — one he describes, honestly, as wrestling, like Jacob at Peniel. Every season of life peeled back another layer. Every hardship revealed something new.
But this isn't just one man's story. Across twenty-three years of pastoral counselling and another decade training people in addiction, trauma, mental health and community work, Gerhard noticed something that hits close to home for almost everyone: the faces change, but the human heart stays the same. People are exhausted. Trying harder. Searching for purpose. Carrying an invisible burden while desperately looking for peace.
The heart of the episode is a quiet reframe that changes everything. We tend to read Psalm 23 as comfort for when life falls apart — something for funerals and hard days. Gerhard suggests it was actually written to teach us how life works. And the journey it describes isn't really the sheep's at all. Before it's our journey with the Shepherd, it's His journey with us — the One who comes looking, restores, leads, protects, and pursues us long before we ever seek Him.
Moments listeners will relate to:
- That feeling of trying harder and still not finding peace
- Carrying a burden you were never meant to carry alone
- Wondering if life could be different
- Returning again and again to something familiar and finding it's never finished with you
Gerhard's closing word to anyone overwhelmed, discouraged, or simply searching: you are not the first person to feel lost — and everything changes with one sentence, "The Lord is my Shepherd." This first volume lays a foundation, with more of Psalm 23's depths still to explore.
The Shepherd's Journey is available on Amazon as an e-book or print copy. Next episode, the series begins with those five life-changing words: "The Lord is my Shepherd."