Hello 👋 😁 & Welcome!
Today’s devotion comes from the book 📖 of Psalms as we reflect on “The LORD being Our Keeper and Present Help in the TIME of trouble. Let us all remember the former things He has done, to encourage us what he is able and willing to do again.
Psalm 121
1- “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”
2- “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”
3- “He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.”
4- “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
5- “The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.”
6- “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.”
7- “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.”
8- “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”
Psalm 121 is a beautiful poem that reminds us of what we somehow keep forgetting.. “That we do not have to live in fear, because we have a God who will keeps us.” This poem is part of the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134), a group of songs believed to have been sung by Jewish pilgrims as they traveled to worship in the temple in Jerusalem. It’s a passage that offers comfort because of who God is and what He has done.
This Psalm has come to mind often in the last year. In 2020, I believe we could all use a dose of hope that these verses provide. Yet this passage is more than just a quick bandage to help us feel better. It doesn’t offer surface-level comfort. Psalm 121, offers truth we can cling to even when the worries and realities of life threaten to devour us.
So as we jump into this passage, we’re going to look at these three questions:
1. Who is this God that keeps us?
2. What does “Keep” even mean?
3. Is it true God keeps us from all evil?
Psalm 121 gives great comfort, and also a lot to wrestle through. But when we sit with these words, honestly and prayerfully seeking to know God better, we’ll be able to hold even more tightly to him as our keeper.
“Who is This God?”
Psalm 121:1-2 says, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”
If we’re going to understand this passage, we have to look at who this God actually is and what he is like. For the Jewish pilgrim, the hills could have meant a few different things, and commentators offer different interpretations here. The hills could have been a source of anxiety and fear, since robbers or bandits could be hiding there. The hills could also have been a metaphor for the divine realm, or a physical place where pagan religions were practiced. Jeremiah 3:23 points to this: “Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.”
In contrast to any danger looming or pagan religion practiced in the hills, we have help from the LORD. The author of Psalm 121 goes on to describe Yahweh, the God who keeps us. For example, he’s the creator of heaven and earth. He won’t let our foot be moved. He doesn’t slumber or sleep. The Lord is our keeper and the Lord is the shade that rests upon the right hand.
These verses offer a picture of a deity completely different from any other god in ancient Near East culture, a truth that’s repeated over and over again through the Old Testament. He is all-powerful. He is in control. He has full authority over all creation. The Exodus story demonstrates Yahweh’s power over the Egyptian gods who couldn’t save Egypt from the death of their firstborn children. God further commands that his people have “No other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). All through the book of Leviticus, the refrain, “I am the LORD your God,” rings as a clear reminder that Yahweh was God, not the gods of the other nations.
So often, we live with fear because we’re looking elsewhere for our help, and we don’t actually believe that God has it all under control. In Isaiah God’s people live in exile in Babylon. Yahweh appeared powerless to them in the face of the Babylonian gods, but God says to his people through the prophet, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:26). He goes on to say, “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.” (Isaiah 43:10-11). Yet Israel so often fell into the trap of looking elsewhere. They formed a golden calf, asked God to give them a king like the other nations, and worshipped false gods like Baal. But those efforts were idolatry and useless.
So often, we live with fear because we’re looking elsewhere for our help, and we don’t actually believe that God has it all under control. In the book of Kings, Elijah called out the people for limping between two different opinions. It reads, “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”
(I Kings 18:21).
If we’re going to actually follow Yahweh, we have to believe he is who he says he is. Otherwise we limp along like the Israelites, as Elijah pointed out, or we get tossed around in our doubt like a wave of the sea, as James talks about in his letter, “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” (James 1:6). How many of us are limping along in our journey because we’re looking to God as an after thought? How many of us are wave-tossed and battered because we doubt his ability to do what he’s said? We go to him as a last resort or run ourselves ragged attempting to figure it out on our own. All the while, he’s waiting for us to run to him and trust that he will keep us.
Psalm 121 reminds us, “He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Our God watches over us at all times. He doesn’t grow tired or weary as we do. He’s not busy doing something else. Pagan religions sometimes believed their gods were sleeping, and Elijah taunted the worshippers of Baal in I Kings 18 says, “Maybe he’s asleep!” But we serve a God who is fully in control and fully attentive. He’s a God who keeps us and a God who invites us to turn to him for our help.
“What Does Keep Mean?”
In verses 3-8, some form of the word “keep” is used six times. In Hebrew, this word, somer, is sometimes translated as watch, guard, or preserve. For example, (Psalm 25:20) says, “O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.” In essence, Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. In the book of Genesis, God promises Jacob in a dream that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go. “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” (Genesis 28:15).
There's a sense of God’s watchfulness and his protection, a promise that no matter what happens, Yahweh stands guard over us in the present and in the future. From our human perspective, things may appear completely out of control, yet God is no less active and attentive. He’s no less powerful and in control. He kept Israel, and he will keep us forevermore.
Sometimes I find it easier to grasp this idea when it comes to big things in my life. Maybe you can relate to being in a car accident or near-death experience, and you saw clearly how God preserved your life. My dad was in the United States Army and he told story after story of how God kept him alive. You may have some of those stories, too, and we praise the LORD for them. But for many of us, we struggle to believe God also watches over us in the little, precise and trivial details of the minutiae of everyday life.
Eugene Peterson, an American minister and theologian writes, “We know God created the universe and has accomplished our eternal salvation. But we can’t believe he show feelings of superiority and condescends by watching the soap opera of our daily trials and tribulations; so we purchase our own remedies for that. To ask him to deal with what troubles us each day is like asking a famous surgeon to put iodine on a scratch.”
In the ordinary, sometimes we cannot see a way out from our earthly mundane moments when we struggle to get out of bed or we don’t know what to do or we face a decision or we deal with exhaustion that wears us down little-by-little, God is there, too, holding us, preserving us, and watching over us. Life may not be easy. We may suffer and struggle and grieve. But trusting God means believing who He is and building our life on that Truth. It doesn’t mean building our own personal perception of God based on what our life looks like. Life may be falling apart. He is still our keeper, our shade, protection, and guard. This side of eternity we just haven’t yet seen the full picture of how he’s actually keeping us.
John 10:9
“I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
In the meantime, we can lift our eyes to the hills and know our help, whether in huge problems or mundane moments coming from the LORD.
I Thessalonians 5:18
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
“From All Evil?”
As we come to the end of this psalm, verses 7 and 8 say, “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”
We have to ask, “Does he really keep us from all evil?” There are plenty of people in my own life and around the world who have not been kept from evil. The hand of evil touches everything. Where is God in that? To be quite honest, I’m still wrestling with this question myself. The problem of evil can’t be answered in a paragraph or two, and what I say here will be insufficient. But if we’re going to believe the words of Psalm 121 and be able to honestly pray through it, we have to at least begin to wrestle with this problem.
The Jewish pilgrim singing this psalm would have been no stranger to the effects of evil. Traveling itself would have been a dangerous endeavor, and Israel had a history of falling into the hands of ruthless nations and often being the perpetrators of evil. Yet if we look at a bird’s eye view of Scripture, we see a story of what God is doing about it. He is bringing justice, he is saving, and he will one day make everything right again.
I do not know why he doesn’t do it faster. I don’t understand why he uses us faulty, frail, and finite people in the process. But God’s timing is not ours, his ways are not ours, and we are not the first people to wonder why evil and suffering can sometimes seem more real than he does. We cannot understand all God’s doing in the world and why he works the way he does. But we can choose to trust that he is faithful and then choose to be faithful in our own life. While evil may cause us to suffer deeply, it will not have the final word. As N.T. Wright notes in Evil and the Justice of God, “The only thing to do is to hold the spectacular promises in one hand and the messy reality in the other and praise YHWH anyway.”
God keeping us doesn’t mean that we will never suffer. It does mean, though, that evil and suffering, danger and heartache will not have the final word. Paul relays a similar idea in Romans 8, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, no things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God keeping us doesn’t mean that we will never suffer. It does mean, that suffering, danger and heartache will not have the final word. We only see a slivering of the story now. Someday, it will become clear, and we will know fully, even as I have been fully known. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (I Corinthians 13:12).
The Lord gave me this scripture during my season of battle stage 4, Cancer. I share it everywhere I go, as it became such a defining moment in my life and relationship with the Lord. “Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” (John 13:7) For me, it sealed all my doubts, and severed all the questionings that comes even the feelings of betrayal by the Lord. Many times we cannot see the forest for trees 🌳 and it's a great reminder to us all not to lose scope and to keep the big picture in mind by refusing to allow the enemy to weaken our faith and turn our hearts against the creator. It’s what Satan is after ultimately, but the God of heaven & earth will fight for you as this battle belongs to the Lord! ⚔️🛡🏹
Romans 8:31
“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”
Isaiah 54:17
“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.”
Yet, no matter the situation or condition you find yourself in today, God will not only help you through it but he’ll teach you along the way and at the end of the process you’ll come out better than you were before. Life is literally a journey and you’ll experience everything under the sun but when you do remember God is working all things out for you. We would never deliberately on purpose select these situations but when we are faced with these trials James says to count it all Joy. We are ambassadors for Christ, and just like Job, God is bragging on us to Satan. So, keep that in mind as you do have what it takes because God himself has gifted you with the power to stand, and to overcome and to be that testament and beacon of hope for the whole world to see.
A Season for Everything, Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
1- “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
2- “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.”
3- “A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.”
4- “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
5- “A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.”
6- “A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.”
7- “A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”
8- “A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
9- “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?”
10- “I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.”
11- “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”
12- I” know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.”
13- “And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”
It’s so important to know what season it is in our lives and to trust God with all our hearts as he is omnipresent, inside our lives. He is present in all places and in all times. Omnipresence is also implied by God's knowledge, power, and perfection. So We’re all learning to Trust in God and knowing more about him as we experience Him on all unique and different aspects. The promise of the psalm, for both Hebrews and Christians have always perceived it this way, it’s not that we shall never stub our toes but that no injury, no illness, no accident, no distress will have evil power over us, and be able to separate us from God’s purpose.
Isaiah 55:8-12
8- “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”
9- “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
10- “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.”
11- “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”
12- “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
A Collective Prayer:
“Father God, Here I am. You know the hopes and dreams I have for the future. You know the problems I am currently facing, and struggles I’ve al ready overcome. You are for me and You are with me. Please align my Will accordingly, with Yours as I make my request made known unto you. Yet, help me accept your Will if it doesn’t line up to your vision for my life. I thank you and I praise you for all things come from above. In Jesus’ name, Amen!” 💫
In His Grip,
Pastor Wendy Schenkel
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