In the Midst of Trouble

Have you ever read a passage from a book and suddenly a line or word or phrase leaps right off the page and grabs you?

Often the eye skims over the surface of the page and the words fail to register on the mind and the heart. You may be thinking of something else or you find other passages more compelling. You read but do not absorb. Then, at another time you reread the passage and, for no apparent reason, that same passage becomes electric and now you see it and feel it for the first time ever.

That happened to me with this verse: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.” (Psalm 138) With twelve short words, I finally felt the universal truth of those words and how the applied to a crucial moment in my own life.

It would be easy to say that when trouble befell me, I met the challenge and conquered the foe. I could have claimed victory, but my heart told me that the victory wasn’t mine at all. I had walked in the midst of very real trouble, but the trouble never wounded me in a mortal way. I walked through the conflict as if I was an observer rather than one of the battling soldiers. This verse finally revealed to me why I survived. It was not my will that saved me and realizing where my help had come from has made all the difference.