Psalm 123:8
The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore
I must tell you…..
I am returning to this psalm more and more over my days. This is the part I love the most.
Recently, I had a couple days that were a mixture of highs and low lows. During that time I received a call from a friend whose voice message sounded distraught. I called back as soon as I was able and we began in a tumble of talking to each other as we hadn’t spoken in some time. It is always so good to hear the other’s voice it can’t help but make us feel better. But the woes and things that frustrated us still remained.
So we began listening to each other, really listening. We definitely were not occupying the same troubled space but we could each recognize for the other that we had heard each other – this is an important thing that is called validating someone else’s experience. We don’t fix it, we don’t try to tell them how we understand just how that feels, because we can’t. We just say, “I hear you and I am present.” This is something we don’t often do for each other. (but look above for a reminder of what God does for us)
Back to the two friends. As friends we were each a ‘you’. To push it a little further, each ‘you’ in this friendship is unique.
As friends we did each other a favor and perhaps unknowingly followed the words of a famous quote in some circles, “You matter because you are you, and you are the only you in this whole world.” So we spent no time telling each other that we knew exactly how the other one felt and what we would do in such a situation. We listened. We let each other know that we heard their ‘you’s’ pain and knew that their ‘you’ hurt. It’s an important thing to do for a friend and really for anyone.
We prayed together – something so special happens when we pray together as people of faith. It is so true.
But beyond that, we realized that we get knocked flat at times and sometimes we can feel so angry. But we also realized that when we are spent from doing things without God being our priority, we pick ourselves up and say, “God, I’m coming back at you!” I think this is something God loves to hear from us.
For how many centuries now have generations of people been able to know the words of the psalmist, “The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore”? Ohhhh soooo loooong.
God has already told us where he is going to be again and again. He must just smile a bit at us when we pick ourselves up after being battered and wandering off track and say, “We’re coming back at you, God.” He smiles because He is present now as ever through the ages. Let’s remember who does the wandering.
I give thanks to such a God who I believe smiles at our human antics and provides such stalwart friends of faith and never tires of hearing us say, “God, I’m coming back at you!”
Wow! What a friend we have and what a mighty great God we serve!
~Shauna Weil
A devotion provided by the Devotion Ministry of Goodrich UMC
A devotion provided by the Devotion Ministry of Goodrich UMC