Dash of Thought July-August 2025

Blessed journey
 
Summertime is, for many, a time of travel. Some are planning shorter trips because the weather invites them to go on one-day excursions. Others leave their familiar surroundings behind for a few days or even weeks and enjoy a vacation. And there are those who take part in camps as leaders or participants - and experience unforgettable moments.
The 121st Psalm is a travel song. Someone speaks to another person of God's closeness and blessing for the journey ahead:
 
God won’t let your foot slip.
Your protector won’t fall asleep on the job.
The Lord is your protector;
the Lord is your shade right beside you.
The Lord will protect you
on your journeys –
whether going or coming –
from now until forever from now.
 
Images are repeatedly used to describe how God accompanies us on our journey - even when we cannot or can no longer travel. It is a song full of encouragement. I can feel a deep trust in God. I can count on God's preservation and protection on my journey. I am in the good hands of God, because he watches over me day and night.
This encouragement is received by a traveler who sees nothing but high mountains ahead of him. Real mountains. But also mountains in a figurative sense:
 
I raise my eyes toward mountains.
Where will my help come from?
 
Travelers on the journey through time often know all too well about the challenges, impositions and burdens of life. Also moments when they reach their limits. Hence the urgent question right at the beginning: Where will help come from on my journey?
 
My help comes from the Lord!
The maker of heaven and earth.
 
This sentence cannot be clearly assigned to the person traveling or their companion. But it connects the two. The companion blesses out of a deep personal relationship of trust with God. And the person traveling receives the blessing as someone who entrusts himself of herself to the living God and counts on his closeness. Come what may.
Blessing has to do with trusting God: I entrust myself to God and allow God's closeness and strength to be promised to me. I hold on to it and rely on it - no matter what I may encounter on my journey. In the firm hope that good things will grow from these words of blessing, because God has promised that His word will do what He wants. Also on my journey.
With this in mind, I sincerely wish you all a blessed journey through these summer months!
 
Bishop Stefan Zürcher
 
Photo: us