He Has Become My Salvation
I once witnessed a scene of before-school bullying.
It was a cool morning and was likely to be a beautiful day. We were all waiting for the doors to open. I lingered on the outskirts of the main crowd with my friends, being freshmen. Then I saw an older boy kneel behind another boy "tying his shoe." Another guy walked over and pushed the first boy—who, you will not be surprised to discover, was not a "cool kid." He, of course, stepped back, tripped over the “tying the shoe”-guy, and fell. The victim fell back into the landscaped row of low, prickly-stemmed, hedges.
And at that second, the bell rang. Everyone rushed away to get to class.
"I was pushed hard, so that I was falling." (Psa 118:13)
Sometimes you feel like you are falling. You just feel pushed too hard. Too many demands of too great a significance. Too many regrets stacked too high. There's an almost physical sensation to overwhelm like this. It truly feels like being pushed and falling. It feels like being teamed up on. It feels like, life is already hard, and now this?
"Life" is a confluence of so many things, including but not limited to, all my own poor decisions, which future-me will be unhappy with, some of your poor decisions, some of which future-me be affected by, and my own weakness, which ensures that future-me will not be up to the task of facing all these things. In other words, it's not always clearly someone's "fault." In the ebb and flow of life, sometimes it really ebbs and sometimes it really flows.
But Psalm 118 also points us to the invitation these hard seasons hold.
"But the LORD helped me." (Psa 118:13b)
God does not prevent the various indignities and sorrows of life from touching us. We do not sail through.
But here's the thing, Would we turn to Him without distress? That we can turn to God in all of life is a wonderful gift. But do we, without distress?
In other words, would we ever be motivated to seek That Which Is Greatest Of All, if we were not pushed hard enough to compel us to do so?
"I was pushed hard, so that I was falling" ...and this motivated me to seek the LORD. "But the LORD helped me."
“The LORD is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.” (Psa 118:14)
The next verse in this psalm states that, as the outcome of this distress, and the outcome of seeking the LORD's help, the psalmist now feels strength and joy. God has helped and saved.
We want to feel strong all the time. We want to feel like singing all the time. But we won't and we don't.
But we can. We can and we will, if we will allow the hard, flailing, up-against it, prickly-patch seasons of life propel us toward the LORD.
We can travel from falling to singing, from being pushed over to standing strong, from feeling alone and overwhelmed to celebrating anew our salvation with God.
I'm reminded of Jeremiah's indictment of Israel in Jeremiah 2: 6 and 8, "They did not say, 'Where is the LORD'?"
God knows that we will find ourselves in situations out of our control, beyond our abilities. God invites us to turn to Him for help. God knows that He has what we need.
Life, out of our control, beyond our abilities, is the common condition of God's people since before Psalm 118 was written. But so too, since then, finding strength in the LORD, finding a song with Him, may be our common joy.
Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash