Scripture Daily

Context No. 4212 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 94:17-23: in context

17Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul would have soon lived in silence. 18When I said, “My foot is slipping!” Your loving kindness, LORD, held me up. 19In the multitude of my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul. 20Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, which brings about mischief by statute? 21They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood. 22But the LORD has been my high tower, my God, the rock of my refuge. 23He has brought on them their own iniquity, and will cut them off in their own wickedness. The LORD, our God, will cut them off.

The psalmist looks back on a time when he was near collapse. Unless the LORD had been my help, he says, my soul would soon have dwelt in the land of silence. He was slipping, sinking, nearly gone. And he recalls two ways God sustained him. When I said, my foot is slipping, your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up. And: when the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Two pictures of God's sustaining grace stand out. First, when the psalmist was slipping, about to fall, God's steadfast love held him up, catching and steadying him at the point of collapse. And second, when his heart was crowded with anxious cares, many troubling thoughts pressing in, God's consolations cheered and comforted his soul. God held him when he was falling and comforted him when he was anxious.

When we feel our foothold giving way, God's steadfast love is there to hold us up. And when our minds are crowded with many cares and worries, God has consolations to cheer the soul, comforts that meet us in our anxiety. We are not left to slip and fall, nor left alone with our crowding cares; the God whose love held the psalmist holds and comforts us.

When my foot is slipping and my heart is crowded with many anxious cares, do I look to the God whose steadfast love holds up those who are falling and whose consolations cheer the anxious soul, trusting him to hold and comfort me as he did the psalmist?

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