Right-Hand

 I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (Psalm 16:8)

 

This goes back to the issue of defensiveness, and its solution. But what does it mean for the Lord to be at our right hands? In ancient culture, the right hand was the place of honor. To be at the king’s right hand meant you were his number one. To have the king at one’s right hand meant that one honored him and were intimate with him (the wife’s position, closer to his heart than the right-hand man.)

To have someone at your right-hand means that, in a moment, you can be back-to-back, protecting one another. It also means that you can easily lean closer and share some words of wit, wisdom, comfort, courage, or restraint. It means having a friend you can trust, and who trusts you and knows you well enough to know when to put a restraining hand on an arm or shoulder.

To have someone at your right hand is to have a partner – and in this case, a partner in goodness, not crime. The one at your right hand has seen you at your best and your worst sticks with you anyway but doesn’t let you get away with bad behavior. They stay up listening to your rants and woes and give you a shoulder on which to cry, but are ready, willing, and able to slap you up-side the head when you need it.

We are forever in debt to the one at our right hand, but that one isn’t likely to come pounding on the door for payment in full or else!