Modern Jerusalem - photo by beggs
(on flickr, via everystockphoto.com - used with permission)
TO CHEW ON: "As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
So the Lord surrounds His people
From this time forth and forever." Psalm 125:2
Psalm 125 is a "Song of Ascent"—one of the songs Jewish pilgrims sang on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the yearly feasts (Psalms 120-134). In this one, the writer likens the travellers' security to the security of their destination, Zion (Jerusalem).
Eugene Peterson in his book about these psalms talks about Jerusalem's physical situation and draws a spiritual parallel:
"Jerusalem was set in a saucer of hills. It was the safest of cities because of the protective fortress these hills provided. Just so is the person of faith surrounded by the Lord" - Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 85 (all page numbers below from the same book).
If we are so secure ("surrounded by the Lord") why do we often feel insecure? Peterson points out three possible sources of insecurity and how God anchors us even in them.
1. We listen to our feelings which change with circumstances. One day we're up, the next we're down.
To counter that, Peterson says, "... we learn to live not by our feelings about God but by the facts about God .... My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel" - p. 87.
2. We experience pain and suffering.
But these conditions are not permanent: "Nothing counter to God's justice has any eternity to it - 1 Corinthians 10:13" - p. 89.
3. We fear we will defect, give up, backslide.
About this insecurity Peterson says, "It is not possible to drift unconsciously from faith to perdition .... Defection requires a deliberate sustained and determined rejection.... We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us" - pp. 89,90.
Whatever life throws at us in the form of feelings, physical challenges, or self-doubts, we are secure because our security is not in ourselves but in our God who never changes!
PRAYER: Dear God, I am so glad that in You there is no "shadow of turning" and that You never change and that I can trust You to hang onto me even when I am discouraged, hurting or fearful. Amen.
MORE: Great is Thy Faithfulness sung by Chris Rice
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