Coming and Going

I think most people of faith have their favorite Bible verses that they turn to often for guidance, direction, and comfort.  For different reasons, a verse stands out to us, resonates with us, and speaks to us.  We may underline or highlight the verse or commit it to memory.

Psalm 121 speaks about God’s presence and help in our lives.  It teaches us that God never dozes off like we may in a Sunday sermon. One of my favorite verses is found in the last line of Psalm 121.  The writer confesses:

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming from this time on and for evermore.

Most of life is spent coming and going.  Now we may take long trips and vacations or see the world, but most of life is journeying simply from here to there.  We leave home and go to work, school, or church.  We stop by the grocery store to pick up a few things.  A trip to the doctor or the bank may find its way on our daily calendar. And if you are like me, you enjoy walking down your driveway to check for mail at your mailbox.  Yes, we spend a lot of time coming and going.

Then there are those times in which life gets chaotic.  There is too much to do or some unexpected event sends our lives into a whirlwind.  Often in such experiences we may remark to another person, “I don’t know if I am coming or going.”  Our lives are in such a state of disruption that our sense of direction is simply off.

The good news is that in all of our coming and going that the Lord keeps us.  The word keep literally means “to guard” in the Hebrew.  Regardless of what is going in our lives God is on guard duty.  God is watching over us with eyes of love and grace. John Newton who gave to us the words to the classic hymn Amazing Grace also once wrote, “If the Lord be with us, we have no cause of fear. His eye is upon us, His arm over us, His ear open to our prayer – His grace sufficient. His promise unchangeable.”

So today in our coming and going, God is with us.  When we don’t know if we are coming or going, God is with us.  And when we are simply stuck in place, God is with us.  God is on guard duty.  We are always and forever in God’s keep.