Good morning
Has it ever happened to you that the same Bible verse unexpectedly keeps coming across your path?
This once happened to me with Psalm 94:18. Due to all the repetition, I eventually knew the Bible verse by heart. “When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your unfailing love, Lord, supported me.”
I was walking through a remote area called Te Rapa, in New Zealand and stopped for some rest at the end of an exhausting day. I slept next to a farmyard fence, under the stars, on a patch of soft green grass. This was liberating for me as a South African, because there are no snakes or scorpions in New Zealand.
The name Te Rapa is the shortened version of Te Rapai, a significant name in the Te Arawa and Ngati Porou tribes of New Zealand.
I believe we should always try to understand the deeper meaning of the places where we pray. That helps to pray very specific Holy Spirit-guided prayers.
The names of the tribes Te Arawa and Ngati Porou mean "The way the sun shines through the clouds" and "The people of one who was born at dawn".
What a beautiful setting. I can almost see the picture of the sun rays breaking through the cloudy sky with new zeal, lighting up the new day over the people of New Zealand. It is a picture of hope and a bright future.
The area Te Rapai is named after a prominent leader in Maori history. His name means "The Gatherer" or "The Collector", and is associated with harvesting and abundance.
Sleeping over in Te Rapa on the soft grass and under the stars became indeed a place where I gathered and harvested beautiful testimonies about God.
During the night, I was woken by a shuffling noise in the grass near me. I sat up and scrutinized the surrounding grassland in the dim light of the fading moon. I turned around and tried to distinguish between shadows and bushes behind the fence. I heard the shuffling noise again! It was much closer … then I spotted it. A figure emerged from the shadow of a tree on my left. More movement to the right caught my eye. It was a cow and some sheep grazing in the soft grass. I went back to sleep and was only woken the next morning by the rising sun, making it’s way through the clouds. I got up and prepared to continue on my walk. Little did I know that a beautiful testimony was about to be born there in Te Rapa just after dawn.
There was a long, deep freshly dug trench along the pathway, and I had the option to walk back quite a way to go around it. Since it was deep, but not very wide, I decided to jump over. All the way along the other side of the trench was a long pile of soil on which I had to land. I had to take care not to fall over backwards and land in the trench.
I took a short run-up, and leapt as high as I could. The soil on the other side looked quite compact and I braced myself for a hard landing. However, as my right foot touched the soil, it broke through soft ground and I sank into the embankment. The weight of the bag on my back pushed hard, and everything suddenly went into slow motion.
I could feel 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, and an anxious shriek was all I could manage. There was 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 the 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 of the deep soil. There was nothing wrong. I gently stepped on my ankle, there was no pain. I moved my foot, and still, there was 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
