Psalm 30:6,7 “When I felt secure, I said, ‘I will never be shaken.’ O LORD, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm;”

[When we are in a positive situation, when we feel safe and see your blessings, it is easy to feel firm and stable. Such times are important for solidification and building up in truth--if we take advantage of them, diving into your Word, exalting in personal worship and basking in your love.

But in a secure situation here is little opportunity to go by faith, to trust you as we can only when all sense of security is gone, when all is in tumult and uncertainty.]

“but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.”

[When my feelings turn negative, when my situation goes downhill, when I am attacked, my health fails, my friends desert me, my financial situation goes bad, or my work does not prosper--then it is easy to be dismayed, to be discouraged, to flag in my strength.

But this is also the time to flee to you, Lord, to affirm my trust in you in spite of my feelings, to find shelter in your Word and in your presence. “In times of trouble you will keep me safe in your dwelling, you will hide me in the shelter of your tabernacle and set me high on a rock” (Psalm 27:5).]

Psalm 62 comes to mind: “my soul finds rest in God alone…He only is my rock, my salvation, my high tower, I will never be shaken” [if I stay up in the tower.] How, by trust, by faith, by living out in the dark what I learned in the Light.

God is there, always, working for good, giving us enough grace to move on through.