Stable in the Storm

Psalm 125 Every person is traveling toward some vision of the good life. We may not use the word pilgrimage, but all of us are trying to reach a place where we believe we will finally be secure, satisfied, and at rest. The world tells us that each person must define that destination for himself. You decide what your Zion will be, and then you devote yourself to reaching it. The trouble with that approach is not only that we choose destinations that cannot satisfy us. It is also that the entire burden of reaching them rests upon us. We must discover the way, overcome the obstacles, and build the life we hope will make us whole. The Zion of Scripture is different. It is not a city we define or build. Hebrews says that Abraham lived as a stranger because “he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” He and the other saints desired “a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” and God had prepared a city for them. That city appears at the end of Isaiah and then descends from heaven at the end of Revelation. God dwells there with his people, and they see him face to face. The nations are healed, and death, pain, injustice, and sin are gone. It is a city of righteousness, joy, and peace because it is a city filled with the presence of God. Our pilgrimage is not an attempt to climb our way into God’s presence. God has already come to us in Jesus Christ. Christ has reconciled us to God, opened the way into his presence, and secured our citizenship in his city. Our pilgrimage is the journey of sanctification upon which God forms us into the likeness of Christ and prepares us for the home Christ has secured. But it is still a journey we must make, and there are all kinds of potential detours along the way. They rarely appear at first to be detours. As the writer of Proverbs says, “there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death.” These detours usually present themselves as reasonable alternatives when God’s way becomes difficult: a quicker way to obtain what God has promised, a safer way to avoid suffering, or a more effective way to deal with people who have wronged us. That creates the tension in Psalm 125. If reaching Zion depended ultimately upon our ability to recognize every danger, resist every temptation, and maintain a perfect grip upon God, none of us would make it. The key isn’t in your steps, but in the God you trust. Yet the psalm also warns us against turning aside to crooked ways. God’s preservation does not make our perseverance unnecessary. God preserves his people by keeping them in a persevering faith. When Israel was led back into the wilderness to wander for 40 more years before entering the Promised Land, it was for one reason; to train them to trust the Lord along the way. The central application of this psalm, then, is that when God’s path becomes difficult, we must continue trusting him rather than attempting to secure his promised destination through a crooked way. The psalm develops that truth through God’s protection, God’s preservation, and the pilgrim’s prayer.