“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth… He Who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He Who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper… He will keep your life… from this time forth and forevermore.” Psalm 121
We are never beyond the loving gaze of our Creator God Who keeps us. He made us; He knows us; He loves us.
Psalm 139 tells how He formed our parts and knit us together in our mother’s womb, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven… Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
There is no time we have been beyond His notice and His Fatherly affection; nothing escapes His sight. He sees all. He knows the profound purposes for which He first made us. He is not unaware of our struggles and failings, but He equally sees the promise of what we are made to be IN HIM.
Psalm 121 says that He Who watches us neither slumbers nor sleeps. His love holds perpetual vigil. No matter how silent the heavens may seem, no matter how one-sided a prayer may appear to echo, He is there… He has always been there and always will be.
In the continuing story of God’s redemption, His people had walked with Him awhile and then strayed away… walked with Him awhile more and then strayed away again. Generation after generation passed with this cyclical renewal and abandonment of their desire to walk beside their God …and suddenly, all was quiet.
A nation of God’s people had now long been captive beneath hostile warring kingdoms; all the promise of their own beautiful land had been rendered barren and desolate wasteland; and the word of the Lord had seemingly died away—no new messages, no new signs, no new prophets, no new hope… just a deafening silence as sin took its spoils. When the world was aching for its salvation, it seemed to have only found a season of silence. But God had not gone away…
He was watching with love: that type of love that throbs in the heart… all the more piercingly, as its intended recipients stray further and further from the arms longing to hold them in tenderness. It is a pain the father or mother of every prodigal child knows, and it is the way our Father God was watching and waiting and loving us, until that perfect moment for redemption would come. He was keeping us…
The Hebrew word for “keep” means to guard and protect, to exercise great care. We were never beyond His enveloping care, that desire to wrap us in His sheltering arms. In the oldest days of castles, the “keep” was the tallest, strongest part of any fortification. It was the refuge to which you would run for protection in battle… the last hope still standing strong when all else fell. This is what the love of God is to us, as He keeps us… a place of refuge where we can rest secure in Him, as all other faulty strongholds and assurances around us fall.
Another beautiful meaning comes to us from the Old English word for keeping: to hold, seek after, and desire. This, too, is the way our Father God is keeping us. He is holding us safe in His heart’s tenderest affection, even when we so foolishly go astray. He is seeking after us single-mindedly, even when we are seeking lesser things rather than Him. He is forever desiring to be near to us, even when we can’t sense just how far we’ve wandered away.
Our God loves us so much that, even when we couldn’t comprehend how to draw close to Him, the One Who keeps our souls deigned to make the first step, Himself, and draw near to us.
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“O Little Town of Bethlehem” (excerpt)
Phillips Brooks (1868)
How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.
No ear may heart His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in.
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin, and enter in; be born in us today!
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us—abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel.
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-Amy Rutherford, 2023-
