The worst patient in any physiotherapist's week is a runner. The prescription couldn't be simpler — six weeks off the leg — and almost nobody takes it. They test the knee at week two, jog at week three, tear it again at week four. To a body built on momentum, rest reads as losing ground. Some patients have to be ordered down.

Psalm 23 uses a strange verb. Not invites, not suggests. Makes. He makes me lie down. Whoever wrote that knew his own legs: left alone, they keep walking. Keep producing, keep proving, keep moving the to-do list around. Rest rarely feels like a choice — it feels like falling behind. So sometimes it arrives disguised as something you can't argue with. A flu. A cancelled flight. A week where nothing works.

Notice where the psalm puts restoration. Not at a summit, not mid-achievement — beside still water. The flat, quiet kind. No spray, no roar, nothing you'd stop to photograph. The kind you'd walk straight past on the way to somewhere more impressive, which is exactly why you'd have to be led there. If something is forcing you to stop right now, sit with one uncomfortable possibility: it might not be the obstacle. It might be the pasture.