I have selected the first line of verse 5 as our main text for today’s short meditation and it reads:

“The Lord is your

keeper.” Our theme for today reads: O le Alofa fa’atinā o le Atua: A Motherly Love of God. I will not preach
about the background context of the passage for that is what the talatala here can do for us and of course, I might
preach something out of context and make you feel upset throughout the day. But I want us to view Psalm 121
from a feminine perspective or from a lens of a mother. Throughout this whole passage, it clearly depicts a person
who is truly puts his or her trust in God. The texts expose the ‘Loving’ role of God through his protecting action.
Such picture mirrors a mutual relationship between the mother and her child. It is a reliable and a trustworthy
mother who keeps her child under her protection. If you think about your mother and her contributions in your
family and in your life, generally protecting, nurturing, feeding, teaching, scolding, loving and caring will all
comes to our mind attributing to our mothers, which it generates who we are today. When we were very young as
infants, we remembered how our mothers took very good care of us; protecting us from diseases and sickness. As
we continue to grow up, our mothers continue to support us and our trust in them continue to become stable.
Therefore, whatever circumstances come in our way, we tend to rely on our mothers. That is exactly what
happened in the passage today. The psalmist knows exactly where to find help. He put all his trust to God; he
knows by heart that God will never forsake him. He knows by heart that God will secure his entire family from
enemies, from all evil things in life, just because he trusted him entirely. Our journey of life is not without
obstacles, struggles, conflicts and sometimes an urge of quit comes in our way. The text today reminds us to put
full trust to God and at the same time, think about our mothers. God watches over us in the everyday affairs of life.
He will keep us in his hands and he is our shade from rays of evil. As we can see that the verb keeps often used by
the writer to describe the action of God towards human. He who keeps you will not slumber; he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep; the Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life; the Lord will keep your
going out and your coming in. The Lord is your keeper. Keeping is to secure, to care for, to nurture, to maintain, to
preserve. God as a mother assured our security from dangers of life. He keeps us days and night and will never fall
asleep. He sent his beloved son to show us that he never forsaken us but rather continues to secure us, to keep us
safe in his loving arms. So that our sins will be paid off with the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and our Saviour
and that we may have eternal happiness and freedom. To God be the Glory. Amen