“But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped … Nevertheless, I am continually with you, you hold my right hand.” (Psalm 73:2, 23)
The clash between truth and apparent reality in this world had nearly become too much for the psalmist. He had almost lost his footing in faith. He had a deep crisis of faith and confessed that he had nearly succumbed and given way. Yet when God prevailed in his life and once again gave him perspective (v.17), the psalmist awakened to discover “I am continually with you”! Throughout the entire crisis he had remained in God’s favor, relationship and presence. Though he could not see it, the entire ordeal had transpired in God’s presence, with God near. Indeed, he could confess that through the entire experience “you hold my right hand.”
All our depression and every crippling crisis in actuality is based on a facade. When God seems far away, removed, and inactive it is but a half-drawn picture that ignores the greater reality of God’s inescapable presence with us through all things. We doubt God’s presence while immersed in God’s presence. Sometimes, for His own sovereign reasons and sanctifying purposes, God suspends the sense of His presence, but never His actual presence.
Forgive me, Lord, for my failing faith. Keep me. Awaken me to the reality of your presence and the riches I have in you. I ask this in the Name of Him who promised, “I am with you always” and “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Amen.