In April I took a misstep on a wooden strip of flooring in my house, and fell backward onto the hardwood floor. I was briefly stunned, but was quickly helped up after feeling fairly sure that I could stand and even walk. It happened in the evening, and so we waited until the next morning to visit my doctor, who ordered x rays and said that, unlikely as it seemed, it appeared that nothing was broken. The x rays confirmed in the report that “nothing was broken, and nothing displaced.”

It wasn’t until this week that I read Psalm 94:18: When I said, “My foot is slipping, your mercy, O Lord, supported me.” The words leaped off the page, and then I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving in the next verse of the psalm: When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. I experienced consolation and joy when it was confirmed that none of my bones had been either dislocated or broken. Even at the time it happened I thought it was a great blessing, but reading the Psalm was like hearing confirmation that God is at work in my life. I marveled that the message came from so long ago, and that the psalmist, so very different and distant from me, yet had an experience that could resonate in a person in the twenty first century, and more than resonate. The scripture identified the source of grace in God’s mercy.

I don’t believe that the scripture and my foot slipping were coincidences, because I do believe the scripture comes from the Holy Spirit of God through human beings. The Psalms in particular touch the intersection between our holy God and our humanity.

A British Puritan preacher in the 16oo’s wrote this: There is as much difference between heavenly comforts and earthly, as between a banquet that is eaten and one that is painted on the wall! (Thomas Watson, 1660)

The Bible itself is the banquet that is eaten. It’s message of God’s mercy reaches a crescendo with the coming of Christ at the Last Supper: Take, and eat, this is my body. . . Drink from this, all of you. This is my blood. . . (Matthew 26:26, 27). For thousands of years the meal at the table of Christ has remained the same, and hungry souls have sought it out to be a bridge to the one who invites us to his banquet. We live in a time when the banquet is more available than ever before. When our foot slips we have only to “open the book” in order to find his invitation, and find God’s mercy.

Love in Him,

Prue