He Is Our Strength

“I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” (Ps 16:8 AV)

There are two phrases here that are common to the scriptures but may not be in the course of our modern-day language.  To have the LORD always set before a person means to have the presence of the LORD constantly part of the saint’s experience.  The right hand is the hand of prominence or honor.  But that would make the saint the center, as in a king, and the LORD as the place of honor subject to the king.  The right hand is also the place of strength and protection.  This statement from David is a statement consistent with someone tasked with great responsibility.  He has been tasked with ridding the land of all of God’s enemies.  David would serve his God and his country by waging warfare with all those who threatened the covenants God made with his forefathers. As a commander in chief who also took to the field, David was not naïve enough to believe he could wage war all by himself.  He knew the only way in which to experience success was if God was his strength and protection.

Have you ever noticed after a service station rotates your tires or replaced them, the next time you get a flat it is almost impossible to remove those lug nuts?  Several years back, we lived in this house that felt it was its duty to flatten our tires as often as it could.  Actually, it was the church building.  The roofers who replaced the church roof several years earlier did not do a good job, and so it was common to find roofing nails in the parking lot.  Along with shingles or parts of them, these materials were not strangers to our lot.  This meant a flat tire was common.  About every three months or so, one of our cars would have a nail in it.  On one such occasion, both my son and I tried to loosen a lug nut and couldn’t get it to budge.  Remembering my High School physics class, I looked for something I could use as a lever.  Searching high and low, we finally found a brass pipe about eight feet long.  We placed the wrench on the nut and the pipe over the wrench.  Grabbing hold of the pipe at the very end, we bounced it a little.  Sure enough, this lever added the strength we did not have alone.  Even the combined strength of my son and I could not budge that nut.  Standing on the wrench without the lever couldn’t loosen that lug.  Only when we added the lever did the nut begin to turn. 

God calls us to all sorts of difficult tasks.  Many, if not most, cannot be accomplished in our own strength.  He asks us to do things beyond our capability that He might show Himself both real and mighty.  God desires to have a relationship with us.  But this relationship must be based on truth.  This truth includes His nature.  His nature is omnipotent.  The only way we can truly fellowship with God in knowledge and in truth is if we are placed in situations wherein God shows Himself as He is.  This means we have to go through hardships too difficult for us to handle all by ourselves.  Like the lever, God is there to ease an impossible task.  In fact, looking back on how well that lever worked, we were astounded at how little force we were required to exert.  I know there is math involved, but to me, it seemed like a miracle.  It was effortless.  The same is true of God.  If we keep in in the forefront of our hearts, then He is able to guide us, enable us, and strengthen us so that our tasks seem far less weighty than they actually are.  It is foolish to try to loosen a lug, pulling muscles and not budging it, as we go.  Why not humble ourselves and admit we cannot do this.  Why not look for that lever?  Why not rely upon God?  He alone is our strength.