Who are your enemies and how does the Lord defend you against them? I married John and Nancy many years ago. Nancy gave birth to a beautiful daughter, and then shortly afterwards found that she had breast cancer. She fought the disease valiantly but it was of a pernicious variety. On the night she died, as I was driving over to the house, these words came into my mind, "An enemy has done this." They are the words of Jesus in his parable of the wheat and the weeds.

"At this the fiends fell back, allowing Christian to pass by, though not unscathed, for one evil and malicious spirit crept up behind and whispered blasphemies in the traveler's ear... In this tortured frame of mind, he continued along the way for some time, but his spirits rose a little when he heard a voice quoting, 'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.'"

Fire is a frequent symbol of God. Abraham saw a burning lamp and Moses beheld a burning bush. When Solomon had built his holy and beautiful house, its consecration lay in the fire of God descending upon the sacrifice to mark that the Lord was there, for when the Lord had dwelt before in the Tabernacle, which was superseded by the Temple, He revealed Himself in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

"He makes me lie down in green pastures," is a prescription for stress relief. Sheep only lie down when they are free of fear, worry or anxiety, and when they have their stomachs full. They then rest, and digest their food. Lying down is profitable when we can rest. Rest is an essential part of life. We should rest one third of each day. The fourth commandment tells us that we should rest from our work at least one day in seven.