Psalm 121
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
from whence cometh my help.
I don’t know about you, but I have had a rough week. Perhaps you have had a tough month or maybe this past year didn’t go how you had hoped. So we come to a Sabbath rest, a time of stillness and contemplation and ask, ‘What to do now?’
On a night of exhaustion from one such time a song came to mind, a song of ascents.
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
From familiar scripture read in my youth, sung in church, taught in a classroom and contemplated in the weak and lonely hours, the question echos in the darkness of despair as an echo in seemingly empty mountains. Where does my help come from?
Ever feel helpless? Has a moment of sense humbled you in your selfish thoughts that you control your every day, each move toward success and joy and riches? Has a brief moment with your own soul brought you to a place where you must look up to something, lest you look down in despair forever?
My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth.
Psalm 10:4 challenges the self of one who does not believe the God who made all things can help:
‘In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”’
Yet another Psalm [19:1] sings out even to the unbeliever:
‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.’
How could the God who watches over universes, solar systems, innumerable planets, incomprehensible sub-atomic systems and intricately engineered cell structures be so powerless as to not watch over your soul?
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:
he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Even the most powerful of mankind and the richest of rulers will bow down to the One Almighty God, Creator and LORD over all things!
Can the Judge of all souls not keep you? Will the LORD not help those who bow down to His will and not our own selfish ways?
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
Do not be thrown that the LORD is worshiped as the God of Israel. This Psalm of David is humble acknowledgement by a powerful King who united twelve tribes of Israel. The Lord was glorified though David, King of a chosen people.
Christ Jesus, crucified on a cross as ‘King of the Jews’ for redemption of our sins brought the very humility of God to the promises of the generations. A thousand years after King David and two thousand years ago, the LORD God, Father of all creation, chose not only the chosen of Abraham but the chosen of the nations, those in generations to come.
Christ was lifted up on a cross as perfect sacrifice for our sins. He IS raised up in righteousness as redemption before Almighty God. Jesus Incarnate, the Messiah Jesus, is keeper of our souls.
You who have bowed down to the LORD, God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, have a help higher than the hills. We have Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit of the LORD God as our help from above, a guide to our soul.
The Lord is thy keeper: שָׁמַר
the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. צֵל
The sun shall not smite thee by day, נָכָה
nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:
he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord seeks humble followers, even powerful kings and lowly peasants. The Lord is keeper of His own sheep. He watches over the souls of His beloved. Christ keeps the lives of true believers.
Is it not evil that torments us – evil of our own and evil of our enemies, the unrelenting hand of wickedness of the enemies of the Lord of love?
Pray for your enemies, that they may see the Lord in your love. Is it not peace the Lord would have for His own?
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in
from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Amen
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