Is the believer always secure in God’s hands? Read the psalm below and the answer provided, which is based on verses 3-4 of this pensive psalm.
Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.
Our hope: There is security for the believer in God’s Providence (3 – 4)
My college friend, Pat, worked in a paint factory. As he walked under a huge vat of paint hanging from the ceiling of he factory, he prayed, “Lord, please don’t let that vat tip over and pour paint all over me.” And in his own words, “It didn’t fall.” God watched over his fears, as silly as they might seem.
Verse 3 states: “He will not let your foot be moved” (“slip” – New International Version). The psalmist is addressing travelers’ trials – slipping is a picture of ruin or injury.
I was working on a high-rise apartment (4 stories) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1973 when I stepped on an I-beam that was laid across a scaffold frame. It was a usual construction set up. The beam, however, was not secure and flew out from under me. I fell inside the scaffold (and thankfully not outside the building from the fourth story!) and hit a scaffold cross beam as I fell one story to the floor. I could have easily broken my neck or back. Instead, I hit my chest – my ribs – bounced off and hit the concrete floor. Taken to the doctor immediately, there was nothing but some sore and bruised – not even cracked – ribs. I returned to work the next day. I knew, however, that the Lord had spared me. I was safe in His care.
I’ve had other times that I have come close to death: 1. Being knocked out on a high sliding board in an outdoor lake/pool (10 years old), 2. I had a serious allergic reaction to citric acid in 10th grade and could have quit breathing due to throat swelling – saved by a doctor’s house call on a Sunday, 3. In the winter of 1974, my car slid on an icy overpass in Asheville, NC, hitting the bridge railing instead of plummeting down a steep snowy hill, 4. In 2005, my car was hit – front and back – by two teenagers drag racing each other at 80 miles per hour. I sustained some small injuries, but should have been killed – I was spared.
“He who keeps you will not slumber (mentioned 2 times).” The word means “to be drowsy or to sink.”
The psalmist is saying that even in the dangers of night, the Lord will not sleep.
The word “keeps” – means to watch, guard, keep in view, observe, mark (five times – 3, 4, 5, 7, 8). He notices us all the time!
YHWH has kept Israel as a nation – the exiles had returned home through many possible trials – enemies, weather (heat and cold), desert travel – a long journey of a few hundred miles.
The Lord – Yahweh – will keep you – as an individual. Even in your trials, He is keeping you.
Verse 4 Yahweh does not sleep – he doesn’t forget; he always cares. He is always aware of your needs.
Many years ago at a beach conference with my campus ministry, RUF (Reformed University Fellowship), there was a local drifter type man in Panama City Beach who became an night intruder in the girls dorm. In response, all of the campus ministers had to band together and become a “night beach patrol or security guard.” We each carried two-hour shifts and traded off during the night. Why did we share the responsibility? So, we could get some sleep instead of watching.
God never sleeps – He always watches; He always keeps.
John Witherspoon was a signer of Declaration of Independence and at one time the President of Princeton University. He was a Presbyterian pastor. He once had a neighbor who grabbed his attention, telling him that while he was riding his buggy on a nearby road, something startled his horse and his buggy was led by a wild, runaway horse. Eventually the buggy was smashed to pieces. The man stated, “The Lord was watching over me and I survived!” Witherspoon replied, “I have riden that same road hundreds of times and have never had a startled, runaway horse nor a smashed buggy. The Lord has watched over me many times.”
This is the difference between extraordinary providence (God intervening in unusual circumstances) versus ordinary providence (God watching and keeping us so that no disaster occurs – this happens on a daily basis in our lives).
Believers need to trust the Lord and entrust themselves to the Lord. He always watches us, takes care of us, and if the worse does happen, He is not surprised. And under what we could call a “worse case scenario” – that is, death – we are fully in His hands. We enter His presence and through Christ, we are ready to do so. That is the “best case scenario” indeed!
