Have you ever noticed a Bible verse unexpectedly appearing in your life repeatedly? This happened to me with Psalm 94:18. The verse kept coming up, and eventually, I knew it by heart: "When I said, 'My foot is slipping,' your unfailing love, Lord, supported me."
Once, while walking through a remote area of New Zealand
called Te Rapa, I stopped to rest after an exhausting day. I slept under the
stars next to a farmyard fence on a patch of soft green grass. As a South
African, this felt liberating because New Zealand has no snakes or scorpions.
Te Rapa is a shortened version of Te Rapai, a significant
name for the Te Arawa and Ngati Porou tribes. I believe we should try to
understand the deeper meaning of the places where we pray; this helps us pray
specific, Holy Spirit-guided prayers. The names of these tribes-Te Arawa (The
way the sun shines through the clouds) and Ngati Porou (The people of one who
was born at dawn)-paint a beautiful picture. I can almost see the sun's rays
breaking through the clouds with new zeal, lighting up the new day over the
people of New Zealand-a picture of hope and a bright future.
The area of Te Rapai is named after a prominent leader in
Māori history whose name means The Gatherer or The Collector, associated with
harvesting and abundance. Sleeping over in Te Rapa on the soft grass under the
stars became a place where I gathered and harvested beautiful testimonies about
God.
During the night, a shuffling noise in the grass woke me. I
sat up and scrutinized the surrounding grassland in the dim light of the fading
moon, trying to distinguish between shadows and bushes behind the fence. The
shuffling came again, much closer this time! Then I spotted it: a figure
emerging from the shadow of a tree to my left. More movement to the right
caught my eye-a cow and some sheep grazing in the soft grass. I went back to
sleep and woke the next morning as the rising sun broke through the clouds. I
got up and prepared to continue my walk, unaware that a beautiful testimony was
about to be born there in Te Rapa, just after dawn.
A long, deep, freshly dug trench ran along the pathway. I
could walk a long way back to go around it, but since it was deep and not very
wide, I decided to jump over. A long pile of soil on the other side served as
the landing spot, and I had to be careful not to fall backward into the trench.
I took a short run-up and leapt as high as I could. The soil on the other side
looked compact, and I braced myself for a hard landing. However, when my right
foot touched the soil, it broke through the soft ground, and I sank into the
embankment. The weight of my bag pushed hard, and everything suddenly went into
slow motion.
I felt my foot breaking through the soft ground. The arch of
my foot caught on something hard, and my ankle began to twist. There was no
time to pray; an anxious shriek was all I could manage-a whole prayer contained
in that shriek.
In that same moment, Psalm 94:18 flashed through my mind:
"When I said, 'My foot is slipping,' your unfailing love, Lord, supported
me."
In slow motion, I felt something like a strong hand grabbing
my heel under the ground, straightening it until I landed hard on the road
surface beneath the soft soil. I carefully pulled my leg out. There was nothing
wrong. I gently stepped on my ankle-no pain. I moved my foot, and still, no
pain. From there, I walked 14 km to the next town. There was nothing wrong and
no pain!
Father, I thank You that when I merely think my foot is
slipping, Your unfailing love supports me. It is Your loving-kindness and
continuous, steadfast love that saves us. Yes, Father, it is Your passionate
love that provides the way out for us. Please teach us to love You in the same
way. Amen.
