Wandering Toward Worship
Psalm 121 is a Song of Ascents, one of the psalms chronicling the journey up to Jerusalem for worship. As with all journeys, the path is not always straight. There are valleys and gulleys, rocky roads and rainy days, hills and high places.
The psalm affirms that some seasons of life feel like wandering toward worship. Your heart longs for the sanctuary, but your life seems anything but praiseworthy. The dissonance is disheartening, but your feet keep walking. You look to the hills, wondering from where your help comes.
There is but one answer: the Lord who made the hills to which you look.
But how will He help?
The psalm shows three ways.
First, God is your Watcher.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
You are never not under his watchful eye. The poetry puts the upshot first, because wandering hearts most need assurance of keeping. Like a child with his father in a scary place, the father’s attentive eyes settle the heart, if only a little. It is good to be with one bigger, stronger, and aware of every danger. So God is to his people—the ever-awake Father who never misses a thing, not even the hidden needs of your heart.
Second, God is your Shade.
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
In an open wilderness, a scorching sun can kill. You need protection, coolness in the heat. God’s creation can harm God’s creation. But with him as your Keeper, it does not have to be so. He can shield you. He will shield you.
Third, God is your Keeper.
Every stanza of the Psalm affirms that, but none so much as the fourth and final. The word “keep” is used three times.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.
All your life long, in every wandering season and in every season of security, you are kept by the Lord. God keeps you because God treasures you. As J.I. Packer put it, “He keeps us as a rich man keeps his treasures, as a captain keeps a city with a garrison, as a royal guard keeps his monarch’s head.”[1]
Your life is safer than you know because God is bigger than you can imagine. He may lead you through the valley of the shadow of death, but it is only to get to green pastures beside still waters (Ps. 23). You may have many emergencies. But as Packer says, “Jehovah who created all things is equal to every emergency.”[2] That includes yours. Nothing less than the cross of Christ is proof.
From where does your help come? From the Lord who made heaven and earth—and who made you, too.
[1] J. I. PACKER, “Introduction,” in Psalms, Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993), 256.
[2] Ibid., 255.