My times are in Your hands....

This journey that I have embarked upon in walking through the psalms has landed in some of the most unexpected ways.  One way truly is that as one reads purposefully through them the emotion that David expresses is intense and amazing.  As I walk forward to read and study and then go back to review the psalm that will be taught the following day, I step into a reality of a very real and exposed relationship between David and God.


In moving forward to continue, to refresh the psalms to my heart, I arrived at Psalm 31.  So many themes reiterated from previous journeys through the poetry of this shepherd turned king turned friend of God.  Many verses leap out and jump upon my person but as I landed upon verse 14 and 15 I stopped.


"But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say "You are my God." My times are in Your hand."


The times and seasons of transition, sickness, death, confusion, loss, lack etc ... those times are in His hands.


For me today this isn't some brave and full statement of faith.  The times and seasons have worn down fleshly confidences, arrogant boasting, intellectual know how, experience and wisdom born of the world;  today that declaration flowing forth from that passage is definitely more of a whisper than a shout of confidence.  More of a plea  then even declaration.  Maybe it is a grasping even more than a plea, an understanding that but Him being my God and my times being in His hands and me trying to trust Him.. but those things I will falter completely and I will sit down and ponder if I arise.


I did not anticipate the refuge I would once again find in the Psalms.  They had been upon my heart for months and I felt like a project of sorts was underway.  They have arrived at my door at just the right time and but them and the truths they encompass I would probably not arise. Ever more grateful that the word of God is active and alive and capable.


Continuing through Psalm 31..  I arrive "For He has made marvelous His lovingkindness to me in a besieged city.  As for me, I said in my alarm, I am cut off from before Your eyes; Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried to You."  .... Ending finally in the last verse of this precious song of the heart...  "Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the Lord."

I feel all the less alone with an ancient king and his journey before me...

When strength waivers and the reality of in my weakness His strength comes forward, doesn't seem to come forward as much as my soul would desire it to, and in my alarm and fears, of being cut off from the very grace I am so ultimately desperate to touch, rivet and penetrate my soul with their frigid cold skeleton like fingers, a command to my heart tries its best to land... "Be strong and let your heart take courage," because hope is in the Lord.


Hope can be a fragile thing... but truth sits still for me to ever so cautiously reach out for it... it is as if having been bitten by a dog one won't go as quickly to the next one to pat it's head.  And yet the one who sits and sits and sits and waits patiently and does not budge but with the look in its well trained and stead fast eyes implores the passerby to touch its fur, can once again be trusted... strange picture to attribute to hope... stranger place to be walking still... but attempting to lay a hold of the reality of scripture and the truth of our God's heart that Hope will never disappoint.  Hope does not disappoint.. Hope in the redemptive nature and  strength of Christ does not ever disappoint.


That is where David turns to again and again and again...  when confronted with  more than his soul can possibly bare.. He like Peter, states time after time.. Where else will I go.. With you are the words of life...


Trusting and learning to trust ever more that the times of my life are in His hands and there is not a more capable place for them to be....


He leads me ......

My eyes look up to the Heavens from there comes my help.....

He places my feet upon a rock and makes my path straight...