I Will Not Be Shaken
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Stories
I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (v. 8)
Remembering and believing these words of faith from the psalmist is easier said than done. If you told me that you have been able to do this in all circumstances in your life, I wouldn’t believe you. In fact, I find it difficult to believe the psalmist who writes in another place, “For God alone my soul waits in silence. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress, I shall not be shaken.”
But we are shaken. How does one come to have such perfect faith in a world where pain, suffering and death are everyday realities?
I think the psalmist wrote these words because, like all of us, he knew what it was to be shaken. The world is a shaking place. There are earthquakes, fires, floods, wars, tragic accidents and devastating illnesses that can leave us shaken to our core. No one escapes the perils of this world.
For many years, before our retirement from church work in Milwaukee, Jo and I would always save two weeks of vacation in July for tending the yard and garden at the family farm in Richland County. Bernice, my almost 94-year-old mother, who had spent most of her life on the farm, and who was by then living with my sister, Ruth, in Sheboygan, would come back home to join us. Early on one of those summer mornings I heard her crying out in pain. She had fallen trying to get out of bed. We rushed her to urgent care in Richland Center. After a thorough examination, which included x-rays, the doctor declared that she had a broken sternum, which is the breast bone that connects with the rib cage. There was nothing that could be done but to let it heal naturally.
Mom had no memory of the fall. All she knew was that getting in and out of bed was excruciating. And every time she moved while in bed she felt great pain. I made up a bed on the couch and slept near her bed on the enclosed front porch. Every few hours I would be wakened when I heard her cry out and would give her more of the pain medication the doctor had prescribed, but it was never enough. She was in agony and I felt completely helpless. I was shaken.
Mom’s days of pain went on for a few more weeks after she returned to Ruth’s house. She recovered, by “keeping on keeping on,” as her mother, my grandmother Leona Long, who lived to be 105, used to say was the way she coped with the hardships of life.
In their bookDreaming Beyond Death Kelly and Patricia Bulkley tell about a retired marine ship’s captain in his mid-eighties who was diagnosed with bone cancer. There was nothing more the doctors could do. Bill became deeply depressed and he was filled with fear. His pastor read him a passage from the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians:
“So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For our slight, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
As the pastor left she said to Bill, “Perhaps God has that in store for you.” When she returned a few days later she could see that Bill was in a different place. He said, “After you left last time I picked up the old family Bible, I remembered for the first time in a long time, spending hours at the helm of my ship feeling alone in a vast expanse of sea. I used to stand there at the wheel and read aloud out of this old Bible and it helped me feel connected. I knew that God was right there with me, even though we weren’t always sure exactly where ‘there’ was in those days. Last week I had a dream that reminded me of that.
“I am sailing again at night in uncharted waters and the old sense of adventure comes back. I feel the tingle of excitement again, of pushing through the waves in the vast dark, empty sea but knowing somehow, I am right on course. And strangely enough, I’m not afraid to die anymore. In fact, I feel ready to go, more so every day.”
The Buckley’s added that after Bill’s funeral the pastor spoke with his wife, who told her that Bill’sdream and his change of heart about dying had helped her, too, in giving her strength to let go even though she missed him terribly and could not imagine what her life would be like without him.
“I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
The psalmist got it right. But it takes most of us a while, usually a lifetime, to get there.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 16, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Remembering and believing these words of faith from the psalmist is easier said than done. If you told me that you have been able to do this in all circumstances in your life, I wouldn’t believe you. In fact, I find it difficult to believe the psalmist who writes in another place, “For God alone my soul waits in silence. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress, I shall not be shaken.”
But we are shaken. How does one come to have such perfect faith in a world where pain, suffering and death are everyday realities?
I think the psalmist wrote these words because, like all of us, he knew what it was to be shaken. The world is a shaking place. There are earthquakes, fires, floods, wars, tragic accidents and devastating illnesses that can leave us shaken to our core. No one escapes the perils of this world.
For many years, before our retirement from church work in Milwaukee, Jo and I would always save two weeks of vacation in July for tending the yard and garden at the family farm in Richland County. Bernice, my almost 94-year-old mother, who had spent most of her life on the farm, and who was by then living with my sister, Ruth, in Sheboygan, would come back home to join us. Early on one of those summer mornings I heard her crying out in pain. She had fallen trying to get out of bed. We rushed her to urgent care in Richland Center. After a thorough examination, which included x-rays, the doctor declared that she had a broken sternum, which is the breast bone that connects with the rib cage. There was nothing that could be done but to let it heal naturally.
Mom had no memory of the fall. All she knew was that getting in and out of bed was excruciating. And every time she moved while in bed she felt great pain. I made up a bed on the couch and slept near her bed on the enclosed front porch. Every few hours I would be wakened when I heard her cry out and would give her more of the pain medication the doctor had prescribed, but it was never enough. She was in agony and I felt completely helpless. I was shaken.
Mom’s days of pain went on for a few more weeks after she returned to Ruth’s house. She recovered, by “keeping on keeping on,” as her mother, my grandmother Leona Long, who lived to be 105, used to say was the way she coped with the hardships of life.
In their bookDreaming Beyond Death Kelly and Patricia Bulkley tell about a retired marine ship’s captain in his mid-eighties who was diagnosed with bone cancer. There was nothing more the doctors could do. Bill became deeply depressed and he was filled with fear. His pastor read him a passage from the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians:
“So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For our slight, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
As the pastor left she said to Bill, “Perhaps God has that in store for you.” When she returned a few days later she could see that Bill was in a different place. He said, “After you left last time I picked up the old family Bible, I remembered for the first time in a long time, spending hours at the helm of my ship feeling alone in a vast expanse of sea. I used to stand there at the wheel and read aloud out of this old Bible and it helped me feel connected. I knew that God was right there with me, even though we weren’t always sure exactly where ‘there’ was in those days. Last week I had a dream that reminded me of that.
“I am sailing again at night in uncharted waters and the old sense of adventure comes back. I feel the tingle of excitement again, of pushing through the waves in the vast dark, empty sea but knowing somehow, I am right on course. And strangely enough, I’m not afraid to die anymore. In fact, I feel ready to go, more so every day.”
The Buckley’s added that after Bill’s funeral the pastor spoke with his wife, who told her that Bill’sdream and his change of heart about dying had helped her, too, in giving her strength to let go even though she missed him terribly and could not imagine what her life would be like without him.
“I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
The psalmist got it right. But it takes most of us a while, usually a lifetime, to get there.
*****************************************
StoryShare, April 16, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
