July devotion
Psalm 121
As Rachel and I settle into our new home with our kids here in Wellington, I look out every day and see the hills surrounding us. Wellington is a beautiful city built all around the bays. At night you can see the warm lights shining in all the windows up on the hills. This reminds me of Psalm 121: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” (NIV v1).
This is a psalm of ascents shared by pilgrims as they make their journeys to Jerusalem. I love the way the Psalmist speaks of God watching over his people. Even though life takes us on dangerous roads, and things don’t always happen in the ways, and in the timing that we might like, we can trust that God watches over us.
I am very excited to move to New Zealand, it is a place that our family has enjoyed on holidays several times. We always said that we’d love the opportunity to live here and get to know the people more personally. On returning from our most recent holiday in 2021 we prayed to God and asked him, if it was his will we would like to live and serve in New Zealand.
It shouldn’t have surprised us when not long after we got a phone call from St Pauls in Wellington. But it did surprise us and all of a sudden things were a bit more real. It was no longer just hopes and ideas but an actual opportunity. It was scary to think of leaving all that is familiar behind, we looked to see if there were any easy ways to put the idea to rest, but God had thought of those too and they all disappeared.
When God offers you an adventure, you don’t say no, especially if you were the one who asked for it. So here we are. God has so many exciting new things for us to discover. Rachel has started working at the hospital down the road as a Graduate Midwife, the children are settling in and tentatively making friends at the local schools, and I am here getting to know how I can serve the wonderful church family at St Pauls.
The best stories do not come from easy, or safe journeys but from the adventures that take us out of our comfort zone. The holiday that went wrong. The unexpected arrivals. The scary opportunities. As I read the words of psalm 121 it reminds me that God has our lives in his hands even as we step out into a new adventure. The psalmist concludes: “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.” (NIV v8). We know how the story ends, but how we get there is all part of the fun.
Pastor Joel Cramer
April 2025
Wellington
