Category: Psalm 91

“Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you. Just open your eyes, and see how the wicked are punished.”

Have you ever felt like the world is collapsing around you and you just know that the next shoe that falls will be on your head? (Me too.) It’s hard to look around and see a mess of a world and not feel like you’re next. People are dying, war is happening, suffering is increasing by the minute. Encountering all this pain is defeating and makes us feel powerless and alone in this world.

But in God’s kingdom things are not always as they seem. We’re not there yet, but we see glimpses. These verses give us a glimpse of God’s kingdom. I love the phrase, “just open your eyes…” Look around! Can’t you see that God is at work here? Can’t you see that evil is being limited and thwarted and stopped by his hand? Can’t you see in your own life the faithfulness of God?

Here’s your freedom for today: evil can’t touch you the way it touches the world. It can’t control you, it can’t own you, it can’t capture you when you belong to Jesus. Why? Because when you turn your whole life over to God, you enter his kingdom and his family. You are adopted and have a seat at the royal table. While we are still living on earth, we don’t get to experience the full privileges of that life. But when you see wickedness and evil around you, cling to the truth that you belong to another kingdom.

“If you make the Lord your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home.”

As a counselor, I am very aware that bad things happen to good people. So I read this verse and I wrestle… “no evil will conquer you…” How do we talk about that with those who grew up with abusive parents, or those who have been victimized? Is it their fault because they must not have been trusting God enough? It is verses like these that can make us go the victim-blaming direction.

The key word that hits me here is “conquer.” The people who have sat in my counseling office sharing their stories of trauma are survivors. When they have turned to God, they have found refuge from their harm. They have connected with the empowerment they gain from being adopted into God’s family. These truths give them hope that there is a world better than this one and it is safe for them.

Here’s your freedom for today: no matter what you have been through, evil cannot keep you down. Run into the refuge and shelter of God. Embrace his protection and love. Become empowered by letting your position in God’s family define you instead of harm defining you. You will not be kept down in God’s kingdom. You will no longer be oppressed, you will no longer be victimized. These are guarantees this world cannot offer. And so we press on to a place where sickness and death and trauma no longer exist.

“For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.”

The Bible really doesn’t tell us that much about angels. We get glimpses here and there, and sometimes we get a little too obsessed with figuring them out. While angels will certainly remain quite mysterious while we are still here on earth, this verse gives us one clue into understanding them: they protect us.

I often have joked with my son that his guardian angels keep quitting because he is too tough of a case… He has been upheld many times, coming out of precarious scenarios with not even a scratch. In those moments, like when a dresser fell on him when he was 3, I feel keenly aware of supernatural protection over his life.

Here’s your freedom for today: God will use every resource possible to protect you. He dispatches angels to guard you and keep you safe. He hides you under his wing. His promises are a truth protection against the lies of the enemy. God is interested in stopping the evil kingdom of this world from harming you in any way possible. There are some ways in which the earthly kingdom of Satan can still get to us, but when we follow God’s ways even these have less power. Stay safe in the presence of God today, and thank him for sending angels to serve and protect you.

“You will trample upon lions and cobras; you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet!”

This verse is packed with more meaning than might first meet the eye. Sure, we’d all like to be invincible and fend off lions and tigers and bears (you know…). But God prophesied that we would crush serpents under our feet since the moment Adam and Eve fell.

In Genesis 3, there is an image of a serpent’s head and a person’s heel as God doles out the punishment for Satan in verse 15. It is the moment in which God reveals that Satan will not win the ultimate victory. “He will strike your head and you will strike his heel.” I don’t know about you, but it seems pretty clear that the foot will win in a battle involving a head getting stepped on.

Here’s your freedom for today: God has always planned Satan’s defeat. Jesus will crush Satan’s head under his foot. He did on the cross and he will stomp the final stomp when he fully rescues the world once and for all. Sometimes we feel like we are the ones that need to crush Satan, but remember that you are one of the ones in need of saving. From the moment Satan started meddling with humans, God has had a plan to rescue you and me. This kingdom of destruction and death will come to an end.

“The Lord says, ‘I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name.'”

Anything that starts with “The Lord says…” is a big huge PAY ATTENTION sign for us. We know that the whole Bible is the word of God, but sometimes he wants to make sure we are really listening. So these words feel extra weighty to me as I read them: “I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name.” Glad he got our attention for that one!

My next question is this: how do I make sure I am loving God? How do I make sure I am trusting him so that I can be rescued and protected? These are fundamentally flawed questions, however, because they put all the power back on ourselves. We are the ones who need rescuing, remember? If I have to love God enough or trust God enough in order to be rescued then my own strength is my ticket to access to God. This is the opposite of the Gospel. If you want to love God, then you are loving God. If you go God’s way because you know your own way will get you no where, then you are trusting him. Remember Rahab who helped the spies? She wasn’t even one of God’s chosen people but she saw that she was going to get destroyed if she stuck with her own people and gods. (And for the record her spiritual entrance exam was lying really well, so go figure that one out…)

Here’s your freedom for today: there is no spiritual measuring stick. There, I said it. God is not measuring your performance every day and deciding what blessings to dole out based on how well you did. We need to reject this false gospel and instead cling to what is true: freedom is found the closer we are to Christ. We get hurt when we sin not because we aren’t measuring up, but because sin is inherently dangerous and harmful. You have absolutely no ability to measure up to anything, but you can imitate Jesus. Monkey-see, monkey-do. Simon Says. Children do this all the time. They do what they see their parents doing. That’s it. We just need to do what we see our Father doing every day and we’ll be just fine.