Psalm 94
If I should say, “My foot has slipped,”
Your loving-kindness, O Lord, will hold me up.
When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. – Psalm 94:18, 19
I was reading these verses and they jumped out at me probably because that whole “anxious thoughts multiplying” thing was going on in my heart and mind. I do confess that I like math but not when it comes to the area of anxious thoughts. Why does it have to be multiplication?? Adding would be bad enough.
“My foot has slipped.” – Yes, and keeps slipping. I feel like I am losing ground rather than gaining. This can happen with a lot of things but right now it’s just details of upcoming events. Like a car tire spinning in mud and digging a deeper hole, I sometimes need to stop running faster and just focus on God. He is the one I need. He knows my need.
“Your loving-kindness, O Lord, will hold me up.” Notice that it doesn’t say that I have to hold myself up. I can’t and the sooner I realize that the better. Also He doesn’t feel disappointed that I can’t do it all myself.
“Your consolations delight my soul.” I looked up the definition of “console”. It means “to alleviate grief, sense of loss or trouble of” and the synonyms are: assure, cheer, comfort, reassure, solace, soothe. God has a way of bringing something or someone that soothes the difficulty. Maybe it’s a verse about hope or endurance. Maybe it’s an encouraging word from a friend. Maybe someone jumps in to help. I like to think that God knows how to do the division to undo the multiplication. And when I see my anxious opportunities cut down to size, it brings delight and relief. I cannot produce peace and joy in an empty soul. It has to come from outside of me and God says He is the source. In John 14:27, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you….”
The key to this is letting God help me. I can be the stubborn toddler who says, “I do it myself!” The results are disastrous, as you might imagine. Oswald Chambers puts it this way: (August 26)
Are you painfully disturbed just now, distracted by the waves and billows of God’s providential permission, and having, as it were, turned over the boulders of your belief, are you still finding no well of peace or joy or comfort; is all barren? Then look up and receive the undisturbedness of the Lord Jesus. Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. If you allow anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you, you are either disturbed or you have a false security.
Are you looking unto Jesus now, in the immediate matter that is pressing and receiving from Him peace? If so, He will be a gracious benediction of peace in and through you. But if you try to worry it out, you obliterate Him and deserve all you get. We get disturbed because we have not been considering Him. When one confers with Jesus Christ the perplexity goes, because He has no perplexity, and our only concern is to abide in Him. Lay it all out before Him, and in the face of difficulty, bereavement and sorrow, hear Him say — “Let not your heart be troubled.”
(Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year. Westwood, NJ. Barbour and Company, Inc.)