Sweet Sisters
I have been characterized by many adjectives throughout my lifetime: Loud. Opinionated. Obnoxious…. The one adjective that I’ve never heard used about me is “graceful”. In fact, I’ve been told I could trip over my own two feet.
The older I have gotten, the greater this tendency has become. Tripping is an almost everyday occurrence. One of Paul’s Physical Therapists recently told us that falling is the number one cause of older people ending up in the hospital. It is also the number one thing we fear as we grow older.
Because of this, I adopted Jude 24 (ERV) as one of my favorite scriptures.
God is strong and can keep you from falling.
He can bring you before his glory
without any wrong in you and give you great joy.
Some verses use the word stumbling instead of falling. I find comfort however it reads, in knowing God promises to catch me when I trip.
Sweet Sisters, for many of us, physically stumbling or falling is a very real issue in our lives, but what about spiritually stumbling or falling? I think, for me, this is an even bigger issue.
I remember an incident when my two grandsons, Nicholas and Caleb, were babies. They are only 17 months apart. Caleb was just learning to walk. Nicholas was a little over two years old. Caleb was struggling to take a few steps across the floor. Nicholas was lying on the floor beside him. Thinking no one was watching, Nicholas reached over and grabbed Caleb’s foot as he walked by purposely causing him to fall. That is exactly how Satan works in our lives.
Today I want to explore some Bible verses that promise that God will be there to keep us safe when Satan tries to trip us up. I want to point out that from my experience, God doesn’t promise that we will look graceful in the process. He promises that He will keep us from falling.
Since I brought up Jude 24 go back and look at it again. Jude tells us in the previous verses to stay focused on doing what is right and then he says to give praise to the one who not only keeps us from falling but will present us without fault and with great joy before God. I love that the Easy to Read Version says that Jesus will present us before God with nothing wrong with us. We will be perfect.
II Samuel 22 is an interesting chapter. It was written after David was older and after David’s men had finished killing what some believe to be the brothers of Goliath. It is a song of praise written by David. Parts of it actually appear in Psalm 18. I want to focus on verses 36 and 37:
You make your saving help my shield;
your help has made me great.
37 You provide a broad path for my feet,
so that my ankles do not give way.
The words “stumble” or “fall” are not in this passage, but the concept is. God is my shield and my help and He goes before me and clears the way so I don’t twist my ankle.
Psalm 37:23-24 promises that God will make firm the steps of those who delight in Him:
The Lord makes firm the steps
of the one who delights in him;
24 though he may stumble, he will not fall,
for the Lord upholds him with his hand.
Please understand, Sweet Sisters, God promises to help those who are walking with Him. If we decide to take off on our own and choose our own path, then we choose to face the consequences. We make ourselves vulnerable to uneven ground and traps set up by Satan to trip us up.
I discovered something really interesting while preparing for this study: Psalm 56:13 and Psalm 116:8, 9 are written very much alike.
Psalm 56:13
For you have delivered me from death
and my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before God
in the light of life.
Psalm 116:8, 9
For you, Lord, have delivered me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
9 that I may walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
Notice that, once again, we see the concept of walking with God.
Psalm 118:13 – 14 is another one of my favorite passages of scripture.
I was pushed back and about to fall,
but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
I have this passage on my prayer wall. Have you ever been in a situation when you have been pushed and pushed and you are absolutely at the edge of what you can handle and if God doesn’t rescue you then you are going to totally lose it and may end up going to jail? That’s what this passage is talking about. Of course, I live with Paul so I have it easy.
The verses before talk about the psalmist’s enemies surrounding him on all sides and swarming like bees around him. God comes to his rescue and was his strength and defender.
God will do the same for you!! It doesn’t have to be some life-or-death situation. Any situation where you feel threatened or overwhelmed qualifies.
The last passage I want to explore today is Psalm 119:165. I think we see a really important principle in this passage if we want to avoid stumbling.
Great peace have those who love your law,
and nothing can make them stumble.
Sweet Sisters, if you want to have peace (another thing that can cause us to stumble is panic!) and avoid stumbling, you have to know God’s Word. I don’t mean being able to quote the books of the Bible and a few scriptures. I mean a really deep knowledge so that God’s Word is active and living inside of you. The kind of knowledge that when crisis strikes and you feel yourself about to stumble, a passage of scripture suddenly pops into your head and gives you the power you need to recover and gracefully continue your journey.
Physically, I will always be apt to stumble and be somewhat like a pregnant woman in her ninth month with twins in a China Shop, but praise be to God that spiritually if I stay in tune with God and let Him lead me, I can gracefully move through my life.
Debbie