“Prove me, O Lord and try me: test my heart and mind.
For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
and I walk in faithfulness to you.” Psalm 26:2-3
I was climbing large rock stairs at the end of the day, drawing near to the highest elevation in Virginia. It was indeed a test. (To learn more about my personal test through climbing, the longer story is a previous blog post here. ) But in this reflection I merely want to say: what carried me then and carries me now, is God’s steadfast love, the same love that I had to pay attention to during the climb. And what kept me going then as now is not my own faithfulness, but God’s faithfulness that is constantly with me. The psalmists are full of praise for God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. Full of their words on the trail, I often found myself singing this old song that I learned by heart from the years I worshiped as a child in a Baptist church:
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth.
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide.
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.
Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy Faithfulness.
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
Or maybe it’s better just to hear it sung, a bit less breathlessly and quite a bit more powerfully than I can manage on the trail. Listen to it here. (Skip any ad not endorsed by me, then allow yourself a quiet ten minutes to hear God’s faithfulnesss.)
Suggestions:
1. Take this verse with you and ponder its meaning for you throughout the day. What do you notice? What do you wonder? When have you discovered God’s faithfulness to you?
2. Or read all of Psalm 26 to discover how this verse fits into the psalm or to discover a different verse.
3. Or comment with a photo of your own that illustrates this verse’s meaning for you.
Tomorrow’s verse: Psalm 27:14
Starting January 1, 2016, for 150 days I am posting a daily psalm verse with a photo that is a visual meditation on the text for me. Each day a verse from the next psalm is chosen until all 150 psalms have been featured. To participate you may subscribe to my blog at https://elainedent.net or “friend” me on Facebook and watch for the daily links to blog posts. Disclaimer: I am not a photographer and most of the photos are from a cell phone or small camera while hiking the Appalachian Trail or the C&O Canal/Great Allegheny Passage Trail.
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