Psalm 121
A Song of Ascents.
I
lift up my eyes to the hills.
From
where does my help come?
My help comes from
the LORD,
who
made heaven and earth.
He
will not let your foot be moved;
he
who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps
Israel
will
neither slumber nor sleep.
The
LORD is your keeper;
the
LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not
strike you by day,
nor
the moon by night.
The
LORD will keep you from all evil;
he
will keep your life.
The LORD will keep
your
going out and your coming in
from
this time forth and forevermore.
Well, obviously,
there is much going on here. So, I'll just focus on one thing: how God is
described. There is a word, or a form of this word, that is repeated several
times in this Psalm. It's the word 'keep'. Some form of this word - keep,
keeps, keeper - is repeated six times in this short Psalm. Why do we repeat
words? To emphasize them and what they are about. This Psalm wants to stress
one thing about the God of Israel, our God. He keeps His people safe. At least,
that's the claim. And this is where that other description of God comes in. He
is the one 'who made heaven and earth'. So, can we be confident that He will be
able to keep us safe? Well, what mere creature can thwart the Creator?
Now, does this mean
that nothing bad will happen to us? Obviously not. But what good is it then?
The life of a disciple is hard. It's expected to be hard. Jesus was very clear
about that. But as we find ourselves in those very difficult situations, we can
know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that whatever it is that is confronting us
will not undo us. We will be kept safe.
Our God has promised. And that will give us what we need to keep going,
fighting against the various forms of evil that infest this creation until the
day comes when there will be no more.