“Because he holds fast to Me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows My name.” –Psalm 91:14 {ESV}
Have you ever felt that you stood in need of borrowing a cup of someone else’s faith? Sometimes life is cooking up more than you feel equipped to handle and you don’t exactly know which way to turn. A sickness finds a loved one and you are powerless to cure it. A significant loss of material wealth has caused you to stand in the shards of broken dreams. The one to whom you pledged your life in marriage is no longer by your side and you’re unsure of how to navigate this world without them.Y ou’ve been told more than once that God will never leave you or forsake you but, if you could risk it for a moment, you’re not as confident of that as you were under sunnier skies.
Maybe it will help you to know that most Christians go through spells like this. Our lesser trusts prove unworthy of our confidence and, through their diminishing, God purifies our confidence in Him. This working out of our salvation with fear and trembling is something we love to discuss but strongly prefer to keep it in the realm of the theoretical. For our own growth and good, God will at times make the fear and trembling anything but theory for us. The Psalmist was writing in Psalm 91 and speaking dogmatically about the dangers that can be faced in life: human enemies, deadly disease, midnight fears, daytime attacks and midday doom and despair. He highlights the stunning thought that all around you will be evidence of these grave threats as thousands will not survive, ten thousands will never overcome. Then he adds to his inspired song that it will be different for the child of God.
“You will not fear…it will not come near you…no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.”
He makes a distinction that is ours to rest in if we can trust with discernment what he writes. The Psalmist expects God to come through so that the threats become victories. He hazards to voice God’s thoughts when he says, “I will deliver…I will protect…I will answer…I will be with him in trouble…I will rescue and honor him…I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.” So often we limit the redemption of God to our personal experience of justification. We speak of salvation in the past tense and accidentally and inaccurately believe that, because salvation is secure, that it is static. Dear saint, do you not know that your salvation is present and active? Not only are you saved…you are being saved. God delights to be the redeeming rescue for which we hunger and tremble until it comes to pass. He wants us to know the dread of self-trust so we will forsake it and marry the delight of trusting Him. By what other means will He accomplish this great lesson if not by allowing the alarm of danger to approach even while prohibiting it to own us in the end? What is the answer to our relentless trepidation?
“Because he holds fast to Me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows My name.”
It is this: you are His through Jesus Christ and His own glory is at stake. You do not believe He will rescue you because you are unworthy – in this you are correct. Nevertheless He will most certainly come to your aid because He has pledged Himself to you in love. You have been graced to know His name and to partake of that name for all eternity. His name is attached to you for the ages and He cannot turn indifferent to that which reflects His glory.
May the God of all grace grant us each stupefying endurance which combats logic, intimidates fear, shackles impulsive responses, and refuses to abandon trust. Clouds grow darker before the destructive storm but they do the same also before the drought-ending downpour.