A psalm of encouragement

August 17, 2025

Hi how are you all today. I am well and had a busy week at work last week. This morning I was in Kids church so that was great. But yesterday, something weird and unexpected happened. We had an earthquake. You may say that is not weird but in my city they are rare. The last one was 50 years ago. All I can say is Jesus is coming soon.

As I was seeking God about what to write about in this blog, I heard him say encouragement. We all need encouragement every so often. Some need it more than others. With all that is going on around us, I want to encourage you today.

Encouragement, in the Oxford dictionary means the action of giving someone support, confidence, or hope. We all need these three things but the most important one we need at present is hope.

Psalm 121 in the Message Bible reads:

1-2 I look up to the mountains;
    does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
    who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

3-4 He won’t let you stumble,
    your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s
    Guardian will never doze or sleep.

5-6 God’s your Guardian,
    right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
    sheltering you from moonstroke.

7-8 God guards you from every evil,
    he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
    he guards you now, he guards you always.

Let’s look at this psalm verse by verse.

In verses one and two, it is talking about where our strength comes from. So let’s first ask ourselves a question: where does my strength come from? Does it come from someone close, social media, the number of followers, our gym class, sport or even food, for example?

Most times when I am tired and worn out, I just want to sit and scroll through social media. It doesn’t revive me so why do I not go to God? Do you ever struggle with this? Maybe we need to train and remind ourselves that the only place we get our strength is from God. We can train ourselves to read the Bible when we need strength or talk to God.

Verses three and four tells us that God don’t let us stumble. We generally stumble in the natural if we are tired or don’t know the way to go. Jesus is the Way, we just need to allow Him to lead us.

Verses five and six states that God is our guardian. The meaning of guardian in the Oxford dictionary is a person who protects or defends something. God is our protector, our shield and will defend us if we allow Him to walk close to us and be our guardian. God will only draw close to us if we draw close to Him first.

Verses seven and eight tells us when God will guard us. It is in these ways:

  1. From sin. The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew tells us in part to ask that God will lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. This is what He will do if we follow Him.
  2. Guards our life. He is our protector wherever we go if we will trust Him.
  3. God is with us wherever we go. God will never leave us nor forsake us. He is right there with us. We may walk away from Him but He will never walk away from us.

I hope this has encouraged you today that when you are weak and need strength to run to God as He is your strength, your defender, your protector and is with you everywhere you go.

Bless you heaps and keep living the life God intended for you.

Karen

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