My friend Roman was a rookie warden in the 1960s, training for mountain rescue in the Canadian Rockies. A farm boy, he’d never climbed before. In time, Roman’s instructor, Mike, decided Roman was ready for a vertical cliff face called the Chin. Roman and Mike angled up the cliff, looking for holds on two-inch ledges. High above the cars on Highway 16, Roman found himself hanging from three holds—unable to move up or down, filled with terror. 

“Mike,” he managed, “I think I’m in trouble.” 

Mike quickly maneuvered below him. He grabbed Roman’s boot, pressed it into a toehold, and said, “You’re okay now.” And he was right. Roman made the summit. But he told Mike, “Never again. Next time you might not be there to help me.”

“When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your unfailing love, Lord, supported me” (Psalm 94:18).

The psalmist was slipping too. He was focused on his troubles and the wickedness in the world. Anxiety dislodged his faith. Who of us hasn’t felt our insides drop when we watch the news and read the headlines, when we look for evidence of God in the face of so much evil?

God took the psalmist’s faith and pressed it into the toehold of his promises, into the firm support of his unfailing love. 

If your faith is hanging by its fingernails, leave the hamster wheel of your troubles. Open your Bible. Let the unfailing love of your Savior-God re-anchor your faith. 

He’ll always be there to help you.