IN CASE OF A FALL, REMEMBER THIS

I recently watched a TV commercial for a panic button featuring an actor lying on the floor saying, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” This reminded me of Psalm 37:23, 24: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord … Though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.”

Sometimes Christians, in some way, in some area or another, with or without anyone else’s help, fall. We don’t want to, but for whatever reason or reasons, we sometimes fall — not from salvation (John 10:28, 29) — but into a spiritually low place. It’s not uncommon for people, even the best of people, to fall down. What is uncommon, cock-eyed, crazy and dangerous is for a person to stay down any longer than they have to, or to think, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

Fact is, no matter how hard or how far down you’ve fallen you can, with your heavenly Father’s help, get up. He has a great big hand ready, willing and able to help you get up and out of the place where you are and get on to the place where you need to be in life. Listen to David’s testimony: “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God” (Ps. 40:2, 3). This was and is, good news.

We have a heavenly father who wants to help His children who will call upon Him, admitting that they need His help. Read Mathew Henry’s beautifully encouraging comments on Ps. 37:23, 24:

“God will keep us from being utterly ruined by our falls either into sin or into trouble. A good man may be overtaken in a fault, but the grace of God shall recover him to repentance, so that he shall not be utterly cast down. Though he may for a time lose the joys of God’s salvation, yet they shall be restored to him, for God shall uphold him with His hand. The root shall be kept alive though the leaf wither; and there shall come a spring after the winter. A good man may be in distress, his affairs embarrasses, his spirits sunk, but he shall not be utterly cast down.”

It’s time to get up.