Skip to main content

this leaning wall, this tottering fence

My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress' I will never be shaken.

How long will you assault a man?

Would all of you throw him down --
this leaning wall, this tottering fence?

They fully intend to topple him
from his lofty place;
they take delight in lies.
With their mouths they blessl
but in their hearts they curse.
Selah

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
Selah


Have you ever seen any of those pictures from an Irish hillside. There is this beautiful landscape, and criss-crossed across the hills are these ancient stone fences. The ones that were built by hand hundreds of years ago. Usually when I see these scenes, it is on some public television station, and there is this old, pipe-smoking guy telling the viewers how each piece of stone was carefully placed to make such a time-enduring piece of architecture. But then right next to him is this section of stone fence that has toppled to the ground.

Which, frankly, is exactly what I expected to happen. I mean, look at those fences, there is no mortar, no internal lattice-work to keep it all together; yet there are sections of those fences that have outlasted anything else from the time period when it was built. But there are always those weak sections that are in the wall, maybe a piece of stone wasn't placed just right or at some point in the past there was a major jolt to this piece of wall, but whatever it is, this is what I think of when I read this passage.

A leaning wall, a tottering fence: this is me.

But my God is not like that leaning, teetering wall. He is a strong tower. He is an unshakable fortress. And as long as I am in Him, this mortarless wall is still here.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Seed and The Soil of Education (New Learning Project Part 1)

(This is my entry for the first part of my project for my New Learning course that I am taking.) Introduction Corn Fields in Illinois I have lived the majority of my life in the Midwest: mid-state Illinois to be specific. Where I live, farming is everywhere. My grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides of my family were farmers. My dad grew up on a farm and owned farmland, well into my own adulthood. But, even if it wasn’t in the family, I still would have been surrounded by farming. You can’t go more than a mile outside of my city’s limits without encountering miles and miles of fields. Most of our highways, and even interstates, are located between acres of farmland.

This too shall pass...

Gam zeh ya'avor (Hebrew) "This Too Shall Pass" Welcome!  According to Google Analytics, this is by far the most visited post that I have ever written.  If someone comes here from a search engine, most of the time they are looking for " this too shall pass quote " or simply " this too shall pass " on Google or one of the other search engines. I am sure that most of the time visitors are looking for the originations of this quote, but I have to wonder, why is this quote on people's minds? Why are they pondering the passing of events?   Here is my thought: It is probably because most of us have realized that the adult life is much harder than we ever imagined it to be. There is more pain and more sorrow than we had ever imagined as children, but we have learned that time keeps ticking. And as time continues to flow things pass. In fact, even the really big things and the really hard things will still pass. If you are here because you are thinking ...

The Minnesota Crime Commission wrote:

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it: his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toys, his uncle's watch, or whatever. Deny him these and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He's dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children but all children, are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free reign to their impulsive actions to satisfy each want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.