When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.
When the foot is felt to be slipping and in danger of falling, the saying so is met by the mercy of the Lord holding up and keeping the walk steady so as not to fall. The verse is a prayer for help on a dangerous path, made by recognizing personal danger and weakness, looking upward, and depending on God to uphold. It does not teach ignoring peril or forgetting feebleness, but forbids looking at danger and weakness so exclusively that they hide the far greater truth of Christ's knowledge and sympathy and extended protecting hand. Those who have yielded their hearts to Him belong to Him, and His mercy upholds them from falling both here and hereafter.
Believers remain in danger of spiritually losing their footing, so they must stay near God for sustaining help, and with watchfulness and prayer divine help enables them to face temptation without being defeated. Christians in worldly prosperity should apply this prayer when increasing wealth tempts them to pride and self-reliance, recognizing their danger and depending on God to uphold them. God's mercy can stay a follower even against herself, holding her when her foot almost slips so she does not stray back and choose her own way. Without this staying she would have chosen an easier, brighter life here, having Lot's portion and not Abraham's, and would have lost glory in His kingdom with forfeits in the resurrection.
Because He holds her up, she learns even in this life that all He did was done well and begins to enter into His joy through suffering with Him. She finds it good to bear the cross because His crown becomes hers, and grows rich in having not her will but His done on her and in her. She becomes ready to have His will done through her as His instrument of power.
When the foot is felt to be slipping and in danger of falling, the saying so is met by the mercy of the Lord holding up and keeping the walk steady so as not to fall. The verse is a prayer for help on a dangerous path, made by recognizing personal danger and weakness, looking upward, and depending on God to uphold. It does not teach ignoring peril or forgetting feebleness, but forbids looking at danger and weakness so exclusively that they hide the far greater truth of Christ's knowledge and sympathy and extended protecting hand. Those who have yielded their hearts to Him belong to Him, and His mercy upholds them from falling both here and hereafter.
Believers remain in danger of spiritually losing their footing, so they must stay near God for sustaining help, and with watchfulness and prayer divine help enables them to face temptation without being defeated. Christians in worldly prosperity should apply this prayer when increasing wealth tempts them to pride and self-reliance, recognizing their danger and depending on God to uphold them. God's mercy can stay a follower even against herself, holding her when her foot almost slips so she does not stray back and choose her own way. Without this staying she would have chosen an easier, brighter life here, having Lot's portion and not Abraham's, and would have lost glory in His kingdom with forfeits in the resurrection.
Because He holds her up, she learns even in this life that all He did was done well and begins to enter into His joy through suffering with Him. She finds it good to bear the cross because His crown becomes hers, and grows rich in having not her will but His done on her and in her. She becomes ready to have His will done through her as His instrument of power.