Pastor's Blog

Divine Appointments

Psa. 116:6b – I was brought low, and he helped me. (KJV)

There are circumstances over which I have no control. And it seems that the less control I have over circumstances, the more they threaten my sense of security and well being. I would like to think that protecting my sense of security and well being is top priority with the Lord. It seems reasonable to me that the Lord would want to preserve my station in life, that it would not serve His interests for me to suffer decline in the presence of my peers. Emboldened by this speculation, I hastily conclude that the Lord, like a doting parent, should want to shield me from even the anxiety that circumstances might conspire to produce such an unhappy result in my life.

Merrily I go along this road of self-deluded and self-absorbed meditation. And then I run headlong into this passage of Scripture. For it destroys my carnally contrived theology. Here I encounter the psalmist who was brought down by circumstances beyond his control. We are not told whether he went down willingly, or as a consequence of his own doing. But like a prisoner chained to his captor, our hero is led down into the dungeon of life by circumstances over which he had no control. It was a path he did not want to walk in the grip of one whose company he did not want to keep. He found no safety net to keep him from a new low point in his life.

But at the place one would think help is least likely to reside, our hero found deliverance.(Suddenly, my theology takes a turn for the better.) What the psalmist learned by experience, I am learning by his testimony. The path that appeared to be leading to decline was actually leading to deliverance. In his former state he was in no position to be helped. The Lord had made an appointment with the psalmist to give assistance. Circumstances helped the psalmist keep his appointment. Each step of the psalmist’s decline made him increasingly eligible for the Lord’s aid. The more decline the psalmist experienced, the less in control he felt. And, the less in control he felt, the more likely that help was just around the corner.

For the believer there is no bottomless pit of declining circumstances. Rather, the downward trends in the life of a believer are merely conveyances that force him to be on time for his divine appointments. It is in God’s plan to give divine assistance to His own from time to time. There are believers whose present station in life is not conducive to receiving help from the Lord. In such cases, it is necessary for them to descend to the level where their ability to receive the help of the Lord matches the Lord’s willingness to give that help. Where these two line up, the person is said to have reached his low point in life. But as the psalmist has already given witness, one’s low point in life can be his high point in Christ.