Who Do I Call On?

Protect me, God, because I trust in you. 
I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord.
Every good thing I have comes from you.”
As for the godly people in the world, they are the wonderful ones I enjoy.
But those who turn to idols will have much pain.
I will not offer blood to those idols or even speak their names.

No, the Lord is all I need. He takes care of me.
My share in life has been pleasant; my part has been beautiful.

I praise the Lord because he advises me.
Even at night, I feel his leading.
I keep the Lord before me always.
Because he is close by my side, I will not be hurt.
So I rejoice and am glad.
Even my body has hope, because you will not leave me in the grave.
You will not let your holy one rot.
You will teach me how to live a holy life.
Being with you will fill me with joy; at your right hand I will find pleasure forever.      Psalm 16 (NCV)

This is a psalm that is marked in my Bible as “go to”. That means when I am struggling to lift my head and feel like I am surrounded on all sides by problems and negativity – I can open my Bible to this passage and let it soak into my bruised and battered spirit. It’s like I am looking through some type of scope (telescope or periscope) and what may have appeared to be a massive enemy, comes down to size and then shrinks in the presence of my LORD.

“Even at night…” It has been said that the hours between 2 a.m. – 5 a.m. are the darkest and is the time when fear rules. Certainly when a child is sick, those are the hours when fever will often spike. When I worked for hospice, I would receive phone calls during these hours telling me that a patient was having uncontrollable pain and the caregivers were very scared. It would be easy to feel very alone in the quiet of a dark night.

When Jesus defeated death on that Easter morning, I was given a guarantee that when the time came for my earthly body to die, a grave was not going to keep me a prisoner. Because of Jesus and because I have made a choice to live in a relationship with Him, death cannot hold me down. This week I began calling a grave marker a ‘history marker’. It does not mark where a Believer now lives but instead records that the person did exist in this world but has now moved on.

So who am I going to call? My LORD. My Savior. My Teacher. My Friend. My Father. With Him, I have all that I need as I sail in these troubled waters. Thank You, God. Thank You.

Bridge Over Troubled Water written and sung by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (1969)