Steadfast in a Changing World

A Reflection on the Psalm for Sunday, September 3rd, 2023:
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 63

​R. My soul thirsts for you, O Lord my God.

O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

​R. My soul thirsts for you, O Lord my God.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. 

​R. My soul thirsts for you, O Lord my God.

So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips.

​R. My soul thirsts for you, O Lord my God.

For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

​​R. My soul thirsts for you, O Lord my God.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

In our lives, there are few times when we will experience truly steadfast love. We’re all, to some extent, changeable, with new passions always in the wings ready to take centre stage. In physics, string theory has been superseded by superstring theory. In music, there is an ever-changing top 100 – what once was ruled by the Beatles and the Beach Boys is ruled by the likes of Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. The best-selling novels of 1923, including classes like Gibran’s The Prophet and Emily of New Moon by L M Montgomery are the stuff of used bookstores, supplanted from the best-selling shelves by the latest, perhaps less memorable fiction.

As the culture around us moves, we are enticed to move with it. Fashions change. Stars fade. Fires turn to embers. And yet, the Scriptures remind us time and again that the endless re-directing of our attentions and passions is not the example God sets for us. God is entirely faithful. God is always steadfast. He seeks us out when we are messy and covered in mud and brings us home. Even though it would certainly be easier (and less costly) to abandon His feckless children, He still sets us a seat at His table.

But God isn’t some long-suffering parent, inviting us to dinner for better access to recount to us all of our misdeeds and failures. God gives us an example of selflessness and steadfastness not to mock us for being incapable of it in our fallen nature, but to show us how He can redeem our fallen nature. He is our help. He sends His Spirit to overshadow us – to give us the grace that we need – so that we can taste of his steadfastness and grow it in ourselves.

Through the working of the Holy Spirit, we can reject our impulse to be fickle, feckless, and faithless beings and instead live in a changing world with hearts faithful to God, others, and to His mission for us. We can see the beauty in the ancient and the new by seeing God’s purpose in all of it, instead of grasping like a child onto every new shiny thing, abandoning like litter behind us what had entranced us a moment before. The faith of our youth can stay with us, grow within us, and work through us to become a faith that carries and comforts us to our last breath.

God’s steadfastness can grow in us, if we but cling to Him and let Him uphold us.​



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Stéphanie Potter

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