Dearly Loved ones in Christ,
Greetings in the name of our precious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Let us thank and praise God for His providence and guidance in the past days.
Our Eyes on God: Psalm 121 is very special to each and every family. It starts with a question and an answer. Where does your help come from? The Psalmist lifted his eyes to the hills. The most stable, secure thing the Jews knew were the mountains around Jerusalem. Then the Psalmist lifted his eyes higher and said, “No, I don’t get my help from the hills. I get my help from the heavens. God is helper, who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Our God is big enough to help you with your problems today. Psalmist here assures himself of help from God. Here Psalmist gives the details of a journey and the help of God. As the traveller looks toward the horizon, those distant hills present a great challenge. They are steep and at times the trails are dangerous. There are thieves and bandits in the mountains around Jerusalem, as we see in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Anyhow, the journey is rigorous and dangerous and he lifts up his eyes to the hills. From where will our help come? Where do we get safety and strength? Our help comes from the Lord who is the Creator of heaven and earth.
God’s Eyes on us: We are living in a dangerous world. Enemies would like to attack and destroy us. We are too encountering much difficulty and danger along the way of life. But as we walk in the path of God and depend on His power, He is there as our keeper and preserver. The word ‘SHAMAR’ in Hebrew is very much like the word ‘KEEP’. Here it is literally meant ‘to keep a close watch on something or somebody.’ The root meaning of ‘SHAMAR’ is ‘to exercise great care over’. So God is also our keeper. “He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber not sleep (V:3,4). Further the Lord shall preserve you from all evil meant we won’t have pain. It does not say we will never have pain. It does not say we will never suffer or be in sorrow. Here we should know that though we may be hurt, we won’t be destroyed. He shall preserve your soul.
God’s Eye on your going out and coming in: The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even for ever more (v.7,8). God will be your guide even unto death. It is a picture of our life’s journey. Psalmist says that God’s eyes are on His children and He is not going to let us go down or over the edge of our life. So the Lord watches over our ups and downs. There are many things that could happen to us, as many dangers and as many snare. But the Psalmist assures that God watches over our travels. When we are following Christ, nothing can separate us from God’s will for our lives. Roman 8:35 says nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Some call this Psalm, the soldier’s psalm, and think that it was written in the camp, when David was risking his life in the high places of the field, and thus trusted God to cover his head in the day of battle. Others call it the traveler’s psalm. The Psalmist allegorizes the entire psalm and this is the style of language he explicits in this psalm. But we need not thus appropriate it; wherever we are, at home or abroad, we are exposed to danger more than we are aware of: and this psalm directs and encourages us to repose ourselves and our confidence in God, and by faith to put ourselves under his protection and commit ourselves to his care, which we must do, with an entire resignation and satisfaction, in singing this psalm.
This source of help is God alone. God would keep His people stable and upright in their manner of life. He would not allow danger to overtake them by day or by night.
Let us keep our eyes on our Lord Jesus Christ; He will not take His eyes off us.
Loving yours,
Johnyachen
