Familiar scriptures are like trodden paths that we walk on without even considering where we put our feet. We have heard them preached so many times, we think we know what they mean when we hear them. John 3:16 is so common you see it at sporting events on a placard or on a bumper sticker. People know words, but they don’t know revelation. Words are the surface level, revelation is the well that springs forth living water. If God speaks a familiar scripture to you, there is a really good chance He is not just taking you on a stroll through a well trodden path of which you know what it means, He is inviting you to dig a well, for He has living water for you to find and share with others.

Last night I kept hearing in my spirit, “He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies.” I didn’t get up and write it down, for I know it so well. I wake up and same words are reverberating in my spirit, “He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies.” My first thought while laying in bed was, is the enemy plotting something and the Lord is saying, don’t worry, I have a table prepared for you in the midst of it. But it kept echoing in my spirit, so I got up and went to my desk to dig into this verse in Psalm 23:5 that we all have heard so many times, but what I learned was surprising.

Breaking down the words prepares, table, presence and enemies, in the Hebrew, unlocks a whole new way to hear this verse, I call it revelation. Here is what the Lord said to me, “I, the LORD, your God, have announced your sending out in the midst of your narrow places, because I have ordained it”. My friends, God does not want you in confined narrow places, He made you for wide open spaces. Fear, anxiety, depression, addiction, poverty, they all come from cramped spaces, for the enemy wants to shut you up and make you small, but the LORD is abundance, He wants to open you up, expand your territory, make you bigger. “He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies.”