When the Ground Beneath You Shakes: Three Anchors for Troubled Times

We've all been there. The dreaded phone call. Bad test results. Papers served, declaring a marriage is over. The supervisor's office, where you learn your job has been eliminated. Maybe it's quieter than that—a slow realization that someone you love is slipping away, or that God seems to have gone silent when you need him most.

The question is not if the ground will shake beneath you. The question is: what do you do when it happens?

Psalm 62 gives us an answer. It's a song David wrote, put to music by a worship leader named Jeduthun—one of three chief musicians David appointed for temple worship. Jeduthun's Psalms carry common threads: the brevity of life, personal distress, and the silence of God. When any of those three themes show up in your story, you know what it feels like to have the earth move under your feet.

Why the Ground Shakes

Maybe it's the brevity of life that hits you. A death. A major transition. Becoming a parent, or an empty nester. Putting aging parents in care. These moments have a way of shaking us to the core, leaving us unsettled, grasping for something solid.

Or it's personal distress. Betrayal. False accusation. People who bless you with their mouths but curse you inwardly. David knew this intimately in Psalm 62: "How long will all of you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?"

Perhaps hardest of all is the silence of God. You're crying out. You're waiting. And what comes back is—not rejection, exactly, but absence. "God, I thought you were for me. I thought you heard me."

When the ground shakes, our instincts often fail us. We reach for escape—bottles, pills, screens, work, anything that dulls the pain or gives us an illusion of control. Or we reach for our wallets, as if money could buy stability. David warns against this in verse 10: "If riches increase, set not your heart on them." Wealth is fleeting. It sprouts wings and flies away. When your world is crumbling, no one reaches for their portfolio.

We need something greater. Something stronger. David gives us three anchors.

Anchor One: Wait on God

"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation" (Psalm 62:1). David says it twice—verse 1, then again in verse 5: "For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him."

Notice the shift. Verse 1 is a description: my soul waits. Verse 5 is a command: O my soul, wait. Sometimes waiting comes naturally, part of the rhythm of walking with God. Jesus made this a practice—rising early, going to desolate places, sitting before the Father in silence. It's expectant stillness, not passive resignation. Psalm 46:10 captures it: "Be still, and know that I am God." In that silence, other voices get drowned out—discouragement, accusation, fear.

But sometimes you have to preach to yourself. "Soul, wait." Because your impulse will be to act, to retaliate, to escape. Waiting on God in the calm prepares you for waiting on God in the storm. And notice: it's God alone. Six times in this Psalm, David uses "alone" or "only." You don't need God plus anything. God and God alone.

Anchor Two: Trust in God

"Trust in him at all times, O people" (Psalm 62:8). At all times. Not just when the path is clear. Not just when you can see how it ends.

Proverbs 3:5-6 puts it memorably: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." That word for "make straight" is vivid—it means God cuts a path where there is no path. Not necessarily a smooth path. Not a path without hills or valleys. But a path through. And he walks it with you.

Here's something I've learned: if we can trust God for eternal salvation, we can trust him for daily direction. The same faith that brought me to Christ at eleven years old in a chapel cafeteria—that faith is sufficient for the shaking ground of today. When you feel the earth move, look up by faith and say: "The ground's shaking. You must be cutting a path."

Anchor Three: Pray to God

"Pour out your heart before him" (Psalm 62:8). Prayer should be our first response, not our last alternative. Prayer stills the soul. Prayer puts steel into the soul. Prayer gives perspective.

David chose his words deliberately. Rock. Fortress. Refuge. These aren't abstract theological concepts. They're geographical realities David knew firsthand—the cliffs of En Gedi, the cave of Adullam where he hid from Saul. When enemies surrounded him, when the ground shook, he could picture these places. God was his accessible, physical, present refuge.

Pour out your heart. Not your polished prayer, your theological correctness. Your heart. The raw, unedited version. God can handle it. More than that—he invites it.

The Certainty Beneath the Uncertainty

The Psalm closes with a Hebrew idiom of certainty: "Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this" (Psalm 62:11). You can take it to the bank. What? "That power belongs to God, and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love" (Psalm 62:11-12).

God has the power to act on your behalf. And God has the desire—steadfast love, chesed, covenant faithfulness that will not let go. This is why we can keep waiting, keep trusting, keep pouring out our hearts.

I don't know what this season holds for you. I don't know what shaking ground you're standing on. But I know this: there is a rock that does not move. There is a fortress that will not fall. There is a refuge that will not fail.

And by faith, though the ground beneath you shakes, you can say with David: "I shall not be greatly shaken."

Adapted from a sermon by Jarrett Stephens.