Always Before Me

“I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” Psalm 16:8 (NIV)

Foremost to this statement in Psalm 16 the writer realizes and acknowledges the fact that the Lord has given him his assigned portion in life. It was God who made his lot secure and set the boundary lines that had fallen for him in pleasant places. He definitely had reason to praise God who counseled him, even at night his heart was receiving instructions. Reading on in verse 8 we see the formula for his success was the fact that he made a point to set the Lord always before him, keeping Him at his right hand so he’d never be shaken. It worked for him and its something that works for us as well.

Instead of waiting for danger or trouble to come our way before we put the Lord out in the lead position we need to be making that choice on a daily basis to keep Him there to show us the way as we turn the control knobs of our lives over to Him to guide and direct us through the journey of life itself helping us through the battles that come our way, sharing in the victories made, the progress gained and even the moments we fumbled.

A change in centuries, years, days, or moments should never alter where God needs to be in our life. It’s a truth that we need to follow through with. God is not a thing of the past; He’s not outdated in His ways. He’s the same yesterday as He is today and guaranteed to be that way tomorrow according to Hebrews 13:8. This is meant to be stability for us not an excuse to “change with the times.” Sticking with God worked back then, it works today and it will work tomorrow, we can count on the Him as our escort through life.

It’s not up to us to pick and choose which areas of our lives we’ll allow Him to lead in. Bad choice! We need to give Him all positions, nooks and crannies; before us in our walk, before us in our priorities, before us in our lives. Forever acknowledging the fact that we know that it’s from Him that get our assigned portions, that He’s the one responsible for setting proper boundaries around us. What a wonderful thing to know that when we have God at our side we never need to feel shaken, traumatized, upset, taken back, surprised, or stunned by Satan and his dirty tricks.

Frequently Satan can be very convincing that he does have us on the run, shaken up by the circumstances and events that come our way, sadly enough it doesn’t seem to take much to rattle us and Satan knows that. However, we can eliminate that by keeping God in our focus, relying on His strength and power to see us through even the wildest of Satan’s storms that he creates for us to come up against.

Thinking of the book I read as a child about the little red train that puffed his way up the mountainside saying “I think I can, I think I can,” we need to adopt in our hearts not the attitude of I think I can but “I will not be shaken!” “I will NOT!” as we stand up to Satan using this truth out of God’s word to fight against the forces of evil surrounding us in our daily walk. Standing firm till the conclusion thanks to the One we have in the lead, the One who came before us to see us through to the end, Jesus Christ.

Dear Heavenly Father, praise you Lord God for the stability that you bring us in a world quivering by the ways of Satan. May we always remember in our hearts to keep You always before us as we hand the reins of our lives over to you to be the one that directs and guides us. We pray Father God for those weak moments in our lives when we begin to feel the rattling of Satan and his forces; expand our faith during these times, giving us the strength needed to maintain our attitude we’ve adopted in our hearts of “I will not be shaken!” as we keep our focus on You. Amen.

© 2006 by Karen J. Gillett