I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. – Psalm 16:8

Today's Scripture Reading (July 12, 2025): Psalms 15 & 16

I struggle with the populist political movements that seem to be thriving globally. Part of my problem is that while they masquerade as conservative movements, that does not seem to be what they are, at least not any kind of conservatism of which I am aware. Populist movements have shifted away from the conservative-liberal continuum toward something else. They cannot be described as centrist and often exhibit contradictory leadership styles and goals, sometimes adopting a conservative approach and, at other times, a very liberal one. They frequently focus their policies internally but will move to an international focus if it suits them. Perhaps, once, America First, Canada First, or Britain First political strategies might have been effective. But that time has passed, and there is no going back. Isolation is death. Maybe it always has been. After all, this kind of isolation seems to be the sin of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Genesis story. We try to make that sin into something else, but the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was that they had placed themselves first above everything else and had forsaken the stranger and the powerless who needed their help. These cities were destroyed, and I am convinced that this is the fate of every civilization that turns its eyes inward.

As people of the Book, this kind of focus is against who we were created to be. Our focus was never intended to be focused internally. Repeatedly, the Bible instructs us to keep our focus on God. We are to see our world not through the eyes of a political leader but through the eyes of Jesus. We are to see as He sees, feel as He feels, and react with his purpose. It is a focus that wipes out everything we might feel and places us on a different plane, neither conservative nor liberal, but not populist either. George Horne (1730-1792), the Bishop of Norwich, responded to these words in Psalm 16 as follows.

In the ultimate sense, only Jesus did this perfectly. He was always in the intimate presence of His Father. "The method taken by Christ, as man, to support himself in time of trouble, and persevere unto the end, was to maintain a constant and actual sense of the presence of Jehovah…he then feared not the powers of earth and hell combined for his destruction." (Horne)

David had decided to place God at the center of his focus for his life. He wouldn't be perfect in this focus. His dalliance with Bathsheba would come at a time when David would take his eyes off of God and place them on his wants and desires. But this would be his aim. And as long as God was David's focus, David remained unshaken by whatever was happening around him.

As long as our focus is on God, we won't be shaken either.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Psalm 24