13 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:13-14
Yesterday, we looked at how Abram moved on according to God’s call, not knowing where he was going, but believing God was calling him to something great.
We can sing the happy song, “Just put one foot in front of the other,” but what happens when you trip when you do that? That very thing happened to me today as I was taking a gentle, recovery stroll on our street. I saw my foot turning in the black Nike I had declared months ago to be unstable. Everything happened faster than a Curad commercial after that (sorry if you don’t know the allusion:), and I remember screaming, “NOOOOOO!” as my face was inches from the pavement and I felt the blow hitting my non-operative shoulder. Thank the God who catches us when we fall, I did not damage the repair of my rotator cuff. Thank that very same God who, it seems, protected my right shoulder from also experiencing a tear. I’m not good but I’m all right and I’ll probably be ‘good’ in a few days.
Even before the fall I was thinking about the whole faith journey and my left shoulder. Picturing an Excel spreadsheet in which I lay out in columns the good things and bad things in my life right now. Realizing again that hope in earthly realities fails one way or the other every time. Laughing at the humor of it all — who am I to judge God on how He’s doing as the sovereign Lord of my life?
Sometimes when we move forward, we fall down. But I am caught. I don’t understand, but I do believe. He has caught me up in the story of his faithfulness. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I already have.
