Verse of the Day for June 4

The scale of this psalm is enormous. The earth may be removed, and mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. And yet the word that holds it together is small and close. Present.

A very present help in trouble. Not a distant help, not a help that turns up once a crowd has gathered. Very present. The psalm describes God as near to the person in trouble, at the moment of trouble.

Much of our bravest living happens with no one watching. The night shift. The diagnosis you have not told anyone yet. The temptation refused alone in a hotel room. Nobody claps. The psalm does not need them to. God is already in the room.

Then comes Therefore will not we fear. The courage is a conclusion, drawn from the first verse. We do not fear because God is near, not because the mountains have stopped moving.

It is also sung in the plural. Even alone, you belong to a people who have sung these words for three thousand years. Wherever you are facing something quietly today, at a desk or in a hospital car park, you are not the first and you are not by yourself.

The bravest thing you do today may be something nobody ever sees, and that is fine.

Courage in this psalm is a conclusion drawn from who God is, not from how calm things look.