Psalm 112:6-8 – “Shaken”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁶Because to ages he will not be shaken,

     a memory of ages a righteous one will be.

⁷He will not fear bad news,

    His heart being established, being confident in the LORD.

⁸His heart being supported, he will not fear,

    Until which he will look on his enemies.

Well, this has been interesting. A week or so ago, I wrote out these verses in Hebrew, then dissected them, making sure I understood what they are (and are not) saying. As I read through them, about how a good man will not fear bad news, how He is confident in the Lord and will not be shaken, I thought to myself, “This makes perfect sense.” As I learned in Psalm 111, this world, this life, is all the Lord’s and He runs it quite well. I’m only a tiny part of what He is doing and in fact He will succeed in His great and wise plans for this world. I really have no cause to worry or fear anything, since my Savior King is running it all and has promised to do me good. That makes perfect sense.

I headed for work that morning very thankful for what He has taught me recently and for this wonderful security I can live in. I got to work and immediately got clobbered with two complete disasters. We’re doing one huge fifteen million dollar project where we are using a computer model to design a storm sewer system. As I was checking some work, I realized there was a serious error in the program and possibly everything we have designed (nearly all of it) could be trash. Then I got hit with another project that was supposed to be done about three months ago and yet another “issue” came up which could put it even further behind schedule. My heart went immediately into a holy terror!

I knew right away this was the Lord. Obviously, I had barely lain down my Bible, reading how a good man “will not be shaken,” how his heart is “established,” and how he doesn’t fear because he is “confident in the Lord.” I knew that is how I should be. I knew that I don’t need to fear, that the Lord will work all this out for good, and yet my heart was still in a complete terror.

Why? I believe I have faith and then I don’t. I believe I’m confident in the Lord, then I get hit in the face and my heart goes into a tailspin. I knew this is exactly where He wanted me to be. Staring straight into my heart. Basically, I’m a person who is “brave when the battle is distant.” I have faith until I have something to fear.

Shaken? Yeah, that’s pretty much me.

But He knows that. And so I go to Him and beg His help not only to somehow get me through this but also to somehow help me to grow in this business of having faith, of being confident in Him, of rising above fear – right in the middle of the battle, not when it’s a tale to be told or something hypothetical. This is it, I realized. This is precisely where I either have faith or I do not. I guess the plain fact is I don’t have much.

On the other hand I do. I do believe the Lord is over all of this – even these terrors. I believe He will turn it into something good. He always has. I am confident in Him. I just somehow need to learn how to let those beliefs conquer what I’m seeing with my eyes. I can totally see how a righteous man’s “heart is established” and “he will not fear.” I’m just not there yet. I am definitely “shaken.” Rattled. Traumatized.

As I said, all of this started about a week ago. Already, the Lord has made a lot of things work out so things are not as bad as I feared. But we’re not done yet. And I’m not done yet. The Lord isn’t done yet.

I sincerely hope that through all of this, He will in fact help me grow in living above fear. I know He will. I know He arranged all of this, in part, to accomplish exactly this. It’s too “coincidental” that He had me read these very verses, think I understood them, and then walk headlong into these terrors. It’s all Him and He’s all up to good. I want the good He’s up to – to teach me how to live above fear. And I want to see the good He’s up to – doing good in the lives of people I touch – the people of these communities who need someone to care and to give them good infrastructure to live their lives around, and the people I work with as I struggle through it all. I know it’s all good He’s up to. Lord, help me be a part of what You’re doing. And somehow give me faith to live it well.