Three days into D.L. Moody’s voyage from Southampton, England, to Atlantic, he was resting on his bed, thanking God for traveling mercies when, he was suddenly startled by a terrible crash and a shaking, as if the ship had been driven on a rock shoal.

Moody jumped from his berth and rushed up on deck. He was told by a seaman, that the shaft may have broken and the vessel could be sinking. He went back to his berth. He said “I did not, at first, believe it could be as serious as first concluded and I continued to dress and finally go back on deck. The report was only too true.”

Moody found himself consumed with panic, and as the day wore on, his fear deepened. Evening came. “That was an awful night, the darkest in all our lives with hundreds of men, women, and children waiting for the doom that was settling upon us! No one dared to sleep. We were all together in the saloon of the first cabin – Jews, Protestants, Catholics, and skeptics…. The agony and suspense was too great for words.” Moody wrote.

The night passed, then another day. On the second evening of the crisis, Moody asked the captain for permission to hold a service. Nearly every passenger attended. “With one hand clasping a pillar to steady myself on the reeling vessel, I tried to read the Ninety-first Psalm, and we prayed that God would still the raging of the sea and brave our desired haven. It was a new psalm to me from that hour. The eleventh verse touched me deeply. It was like the voice of divine assurance and it seemed a very real thing as I shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” Surely He did it.

Moody went to his cabin, and found relief in personal prayer, and finally fell asleep. Three o’clock in the morning, his son woke him with the news that the Canadian ship, Lake Huron had seen their flares and was approaching to rescue them.

Psalm 95 now meant something much different to Moody from that day on.

Take a few minutes today and read this Psalm. Perhaps you are in a tough situation today and God will speak and encourage you today with these verses.

David Smith.