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Psalms 20:7 · World English Bible

Psalms 20:7 Meaning Some Trust in Chariots

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust in the name of Yahweh our God.

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What does Psalms 20:7 mean?

Everyone leans on something when the day turns hard, and the thing a person leans on is written into the picture he carries of himself. Some fill that picture with chariots and horses, the visible gear of strength.

From the Cybernetics reading below.

Psalms 20:7 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CYBERNETICS

Cybernetics

Everyone leans on something when the day turns hard, and the thing a person leans on is written into the picture he carries of himself. Some fill that picture with chariots and horses, the visible gear of strength. These men fill it instead with the name of their God, held in memory as the ground they stand on.

What the mind trusts, it steers toward. A self-image built on outward machinery cracks the moment the machinery fails. One built on a remembered name that has not failed carries a person through the same battle standing straighter, because the source of his confidence cannot be captured or unhorsed.

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Live Psalms 20:7 today

  1. Open your banking app or your work dashboard today and ask what you would still be if the number were half. The answer is worth knowing before the day you need it.
  2. When someone leans on their title or their gear in a conversation, do not compete. Ask them something real about themselves and let the posturing drop on its own.
  3. Walking into the meeting that could go badly, pick what you are standing on, something steadier than the outcome, and walk in straighter for it.

What are you leaning on today that could be taken away, and what would be left standing?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 44

Lean on what can be taken from you and you will live in fear of losing it. What is held inside cannot be seized.

Stoicism · Epictetus

Build your confidence on what is actually in your control, because everything else can be removed without warning. A life staked on outside things is a life spent bracing.

Buddhism · Dhammapada

Things that arise pass away, so a peace built on them is already on a timer. Take refuge in what does not depend on conditions.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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