When God Holds What We Cannot

 When God Holds What We Cannot

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." - Psalm 46:1-2 (KJV)

Sometimes the ground falls out from under us without warning. One moment we're standing on solid ground, and the next, everything we counted on suddenly feels uncertain. The mountains we thought were unmovable begin to shake. In those terrible moments when our hearts break in ways we didn't know they could, we discover something profound: God is not sometimes our refuge, not eventually our strength, but a very present help in trouble. Present. Right here. Right now.

I think of a young Scottish boy who worked in a Glasgow factory at age twelve. Each week he'd walk home through a deep, narrow gorge that howled with wind. The locals believed it was haunted. During daylight it was manageable, but one evening after a long shift, darkness was falling as he approached that terrifying valley. He stood frozen, not knowing what to do. Then he saw the head and shoulders of the greatest man he knew his father coming up out of that valley to walk him home. His father knew his son would be scared. That's the picture of God meeting us in our darkest valleys.

David knew this truth when he wrote, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" (Psalm 23:4, KJV). Notice he doesn't say "if" - he says "though." The valley is certain in this broken world. But even in the darkest valley, we are not walking alone. "Thou art with me" changes everything. God doesn't meet us after we make it through. He meets us in the middle of it.

The older I get, the more I understand that apart from God's mercy and grace, none of us can stand before a holy God. I've been a pastor for over thirty years. I've sat with people in their best moments and their worst. Here's what I've learned: the ground at the foot of the cross is absolutely level. We all come the same way broken, needing mercy. And mercy is exactly what we find there.

Jeremiah wrote from the ruins of Jerusalem, "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23, KJV). He penned these words not from a hilltop but from the dark valley of total devastation. Yet right in the middle of grief, he planted a flag: God's mercies are new every morning. Not because everything is okay, but because God's nature doesn't change even when our circumstances do.

When loneliness whispers that we're forgotten, when failure suggests we've exhausted God's patience, when circumstances scream that we've been abandoned, this ancient promise speaks louder: "My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him" (Psalm 89:28, KJV). The word "keep" means more than passive maintenance. It carries the sense of actively guarding, carefully preserving, faithfully watching over. Like a shepherd who counts his sheep each night, God actively tends His covenant promises.

The covenant stands fast not because of our grip on God, but because of His grip on us. I taught my little girls to roller skate when they were tiny. They didn't know how to keep their feet it was like watching the river dance. But I was holding their hands. Their grip on me was too weak to keep them standing, but my grip on them was strong enough to hold them up. That's the picture of God with us. Our walk with God doesn't depend on our grip on Him. It depends on His grip on us.

Paul declared, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39, KJV). He said, "I am persuaded." I am convinced. Nothing not your worst day, not your darkest struggle, not your biggest failure, not even death itself can break God's grip on those He loves.

Sometimes we have to let go of hands we love so that God can take them. We don't release them into darkness - we release them into Light. We release them into stronger hands. Hands scarred by nails. Hands that reached down from heaven to earth to rescue us. Hands that will never, ever let go. The same hands that actively kept David, that raised Jesus from the dead, that uphold the universe by the word of His power - these same hands keep us. And what He keeps, no power in heaven or earth can snatch away.

Prayer:

Father, when the ground falls out from under us, remind us that You are our refuge and strength. When we walk through valleys we never expected, meet us there. When our grip weakens, hold us tighter. Thank You that Your mercies are new every morning, that Your grip is stronger than our failures, and that nothing can separate us from Your love. Help us trust what we cannot see and rest in hands that will never let go. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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