Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 61 verses 1 through 5:
1 Hear my cry, O God,
and listen to my prayer.
2 I call upon you from the ends of the earth
with heaviness in my heart;
set me upon the rock that is higher than I.
3 For you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.
4 I will dwell in your house for ever;
I will take refuge under the cover of your wings.
5 For you, O God, have heard my vows;
you have granted me the heritage of those who fear your Name.
Paul Tillich called God the “Ground of Being” and anyone who has ever been through something — something terrifying or uncertain or anxiety-inducing, something that leaves us shaken and afraid — knows what he meant.
God is our higher ground and also our lower ground. God is the higher rock that the Psalmist prays to stand upon, and also the rock upon which he makes his plea. God is our rock of ages, our firm foundation, our terra firma in a time of great and even grave tectonic shift.
“There will be earthquakes and wars and rumors of wars” and “many shall faint from foreboding over what is coming upon the earth for the heavens will be shaken.”
But, behold, even if the heavens and the earth are shaken to their very core, we remain steadfast. We are unmoved. For our lives have been built upon a rock, with the words of the apostles and prophets about God as foundation and “Christ Jesus as our cornerstone”.
And as the old Negro spiritual says:
We shall not, We shall not be moved
We shall not, We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that's planted by the water
We shall not be moved
For God is our rock, our strength, our fortress, and the ground on which we stand, into which we die, and from which I believe we shall one day rise again . . .
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