Always

Yet I am always with you. 

Psalm 73:23

Life brings wave after wave of challenges, doesn’t it? Last week I went on a self-defence course and somewhat ironically, got injured. I’m still nursing my bruises.

 What can we pray when life tackles us to the ground like a rugby player? There is a line in Psalm 73 which holds us whatever our circumstances.

 YET I am always with you.

 The Psalmist watches the wicked prosper while he struggles and nearly stumbles away from God but instead in verse 17, he turns his face to worship and says,

 “Yet I am always with you”.

 I love the way the Psalms realign my heart, lifting me out of the pit. They don’t do it by denying the things that make our hearts plummet.  Instead, we discover that even at our worst moments, we can say with the Psalmist –

 “Yet I am always with you”.

 As I walked my dog this morning, I heard the Lord whisper, “Do you believe this Katy? Can you say to me when life is hard, “Yet I am always with you”?

 I looked up to see the trees flickering gold and red. Summer is finished and at last there are clouds in the sky. My hot water bottle is out. And it looks like there are wintry times ahead for our nation. We are more vulnerable than ever before in my lifetime to cyber-attack, global instability and modern warfare.

“Yet I am always with you”.

 As I look back, I can see how this has been true for me. God walked with me and cared for me, even when my eyes were darkened with sorrow and I couldn’t see him.

 “Yet I am always with you”.

 I celebrated my 60th birthday earlier this month and am reluctantly recognising that every wrinkle cannot be ironed out! But as I look ahead, these words are a promise -

 “Yet I am always with you”.

 Because God says it to us, we can say the same to him.

“Yet I am always with you”.