Psalm 125

“Those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount Zion”

The translations render the first line of Psalm 125 slightly differently. The line above is from the NLT. I picked it for the word “secure” as security is the poetic image. The CSB renders the line this way: “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion. It cannot be shaken; it remains forever.” Other translations use the word “moved” instead of “shaken.” Since Mount Zion cannot be moved or shaken, neither will those who trust in the Lord be moved or shaken. They stand secure upon that foundation.

Stability and security is a huge theme in The Shape of Joy. (And just a reminder, the book is now out in audiobook.) For example, one of the traits of a humble person is that they have a secure and grounded identity. But what does that mean? How do you know if you have a secure and grounded identity?

One of the things to pay attention to is how reactive you are to ego threats. Ego threats are situations or experiences that challenge our self-concept, self-worth, or identity. Common ego threats are failure, criticism, rejection, and social comparison. As I describe in The Shape of Joy, most of us are tangled up in a “hero game” of meaning, worth, and significance. Will Storr calls these “status games.” Henri Nouwen describes the three great temptations of these hero and status games as the temptation to be relevant, the temptation to be spectacular, and the temptation to be powerful.

The trouble here is that these hero and status games destabilize our egos. When I fail, and I will, my identity becomes threatened. My worth is undermined. Social comparison becomes a gauntlet where every encounter with the successes of others creates envy, resentment, and jealousy. Our lives become embroiled in neurotic rivalries. Rejection hammers us, from the vocational, to the creative, to the relational. You’re passed over for the job. The publisher sends back your book proposal with a “No thanks.” You get ghosted by the person when you thought the first date went well. And then there are the criticisms. Nothing you do seems to be good enough. We live with what Brené Brown has called “the shame-based fear of being ordinary.”

In The Shape of Joy I describe all this as the “trap of self-esteem,” how we are trying to achieve emotional well-being through self-regard. But as we know, self-regard is a fickle and fragile thing.

So when I read Psalm 125 I think of psychic security and stability, an identity that cannot be shaken or moved. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul tells the church to be “steadfast” and “immovable.” How? Because we know that “in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” As I describe it in The Shape of Joy, we escape the ups and downs of our status game by securing our identity on firm transcendent ground. The ego threat of failure—”Is all my work in vain?”—is escaped because this work is grounded “in the Lord.” Identity has been stabilized. For those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount Zion. They cannot be moved or shaken.

They are immovable.