Psalm 121, from start to finish, is about God's watching.
But I love how it ends. It promises that the Lord will watch over "your coming and going." Literally, in the Hebrew, it says, “going and coming.” And "going and coming" conveyed a lot back then.
- In the broadest sense it simply meant "all of life." In other words, God watches over all you do.
- It also meant "every venture." Every project or involvement you might have.
- Thirdly, every trip you take was a part of your "going and coming."
- Fourthly, "going and coming" was a way of talking about the beginning and end of every day. You go out and then return. It encompassed dawn to dusk.
- But fifthly — and this is the most important one for me — it tells us where home is.
Since Psalm 121 is a Psalms of Ascents, it would have been what the ancient Israelite people sang on the annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem. It reminded them that God's City was their home.
But get this. It wasn't about coming to Jerusalem and then going, as we would say it; it was about going and then returning — coming back again. Life required them to go back out into the world. Nevertheless the cycle was going and then returning. Every time they arrived in the Holy City they were coming back to the anchor of their lives and the goal of their journeys.
Here's how I want to say it for you and me. Our walk with God is
A Journey (capital J) that defines every other journey (small j).
God invites us to see every venture, every project, every trip, every day of our lives and simply one leg of the Bigger Journey we are traveling. God longs for us to see ourselves as pilgrim people on the move, stepping forward with our capable God and Guide. And every smaller journey of our lives can be defined by that bigger journey.
