Saturday Reflection – 06 November 2021

Saturday Reflection – 06 November 2021

(Special thanks to Bro. Akim Panther, one of our young people from the Covenant Moravian Church, who wrote today’s reflection.)

When I thought, “my foot is slipping,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. Psalm 94:18

Brothers and Sisters, today’s text from Psalm 94 carries a significant message of faith. A message no doubt spoken by a Psalmist who had recently come in close contact with the very lesson he is now hoping to convey. In the Psalm, the Psalmist comes to acknowledge, as we do, that often times the very hardship and struggle that were meant to make us stumble is the very thing that shows God’s presence and intervention in our lives. As we read the Psalm in its entirety, we get the impression that the Psalmist had some trouble although he doesn’t address the peril directly, we are assured by his own admission that the Lord was the reason he made it through.

As we read through Psalm 94, we see the Psalmist conversing with God on a number of different topics. We see him begin with a recognition of who God is and his status as a just God. The Psalmist then moves on to offer a rebuke of the sinners for their sinful ways reminding them that God is aware of their transgressions, before then speaking to the righteous as he reminds them that God is present even in their hardship. It is in this very next section that we find the verse of our focus, as the Psalmists begins to take a more personal approach to the conversation with God speaking directly to God’s faithfulness to the writer personally.

The watchword and the context around it speak to the Psalmist wondering who his defence is, in a world will be filled with struggle and evildoers and quickly acknowledging that the Lord himself not only has been that for him but will continue to be for years to come. It is in this context that our focus verse takes on a powerful meaning of faithfulness and love. The Psalmist says in Today’s Watchword “When I thought, “my foot is slipping,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.” Here the Psalmist is assuring the reader through his own experience that God is a faithful God and is deserving of our faith and devotion regardless of the circumstances. The Psalmist calls on us to remember that it is through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone that we do not slip. This verse alone reminds us that no matter what the enemy may place in our path and no matter how big that obstacle may seem that God will hold us firm and ensure that we will not fall.

The Psalmist words are captured best in the Chorus of a familiar song: “The anchor holds although your ship is battered, the anchor holds though the sails are torn…” We may not be able to avoid the storm, but the Psalmist left this Psalm as a testament for us that we may never be left alone to fall. In that resolve, we can be strengthened to say like the Apostle Paul “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). Amen

Akim A. Panther