In His Hand

AM Psalm 95*, 69:1-23(24-30)31-38 • PM Psalm 73
Gen. 43:1-15 • 1 Cor. 7:1-9 • Mark 4:35-41

* for the Invitatory

Psalm 95.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the deep places of the earth; the strength of the hills is his also.

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord, our maker.

For we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

Some thirty years ago I heard a Christian speaker describe how he started his morning. As he prayed, he imagined he was settled comfortably and safely into the hand of God. For the rest of the day, come what problems and crises might, he would remember that comfort and the fact that wherever he was, whatever he did, he was still safe in the hand of God; The singer of the morning psalm for today must have been preparing himself for the rest of the day in the same way. Notice how many times in the above lines he praises and thanks God for God’s hands.

Years later my friends and Arabic teachers, Adnan and Paula Haydar, both members of the oldest continuous church in Christendom, the Antioch Orthodox Church, taught me the Arabic blessing, في أمانِ الله: Fi amaan-il-laah, “The safety of God!” With the addition of the Arabic word “Nahnu” (we) to it, “Nahnu fi amaan-il-laah” is a prayer of thanks and comfort for oneself and one's loved ones: “We are in the safety of God.” I say it often, with the sensation that God is holding us safely in his hand. I like the feeling that the Arabic prayer brings me closer to Christians and Muslims alike in the Middle East. Today, when I pray it with confidence on this supposedly unlucky Friday the 13th, I will honor the psalmist, too, who described us all, Jews, as well as Christians and Muslims even before those faiths existed, as being sheep in God's safe hands.

Written by John DuVal

John prays, may you all continue to live in the safe hands of God.