His Encouragement #165

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.
You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.
Psalm 91:7-8 (ESV)

I’m back studying God’s promises in Psalm 91. This week, I’m focusing on verses 7 and 8. And they are packed full of goodness!

If you remember a few weeks back when we were looking at verses 1-4, God promises that IF you make Him your Refuge then He will protect you from many things. The first set of things He will protect you from is terror at night, violence during the day, pestilence (illness), and destructions (nature terrors like earthquakes and hurricanes and tornados) that seemingly come out of nowhere.

This week, we continue with a list of things God will protect us from IF we make Him our Refuge. The imagery in verses 7 and 8 is compelling. First, we are told that 1,000 people may fall (die) next to you, 10,000 more may fall near you, BUT it will not come near you. You will be surrounded by ugliness, but the ugliness will not be able to touch you. What is the IT in verse 7 that won’t come near you? Well, that’s all that scary stuff from verses 5 and 6: terror, violence, illness, and natural destructions.

At this point, I can hear someone saying, “Wait, I’ve had to deal with terror or violence before. I’ve been sick before. I’ve gone through some natural storms before. Does this mean that I’m not really making God my Refuge?”

God doesn’t promise that we won’t go through these things at all. He promises that we won’t be destroyed by these things. They won’t hurt us. Imagine it like this: God, with His shield and buckler, stands BEFORE you. You stand directly behind Him. Notice how you are covered by Him and His shield? Notice how nothing can really get to you? Now, imagine that God is asking you to walk forward (but stay behind Him). You will have to go through some things, BUT God has you covered. So you will see things in your lifetime — you will see terrors and violence and illnesses and natural events — but God. He’s standing in front of you to take what would hit you if He were not your Refuge. It’s a really comforting image, don’t you think?

What’s next in the Psalm 91 promises?

Well, that you will see the wicked make amends for all the evil they spewed on this earth. There will come a time when the wicked will have to pay reparations to all those they have hurt. I LOVE this. Do you know why? Because it means they will have to take responsibility for their awful actions. They will have to acknowledge that they have caused pain and suffering. There will be no more gaslighting. OH! I cannot wait for that day.

Psalm 91 is amazing. God’s many, many promises to us IF we make Him our Refuge bring me great comfort in this crazy and chaotic time. I also love the image of God standing before me keeping me safe behind Him. I feel seen and loved and cherished. I don’t know about you, but this makes me love God all the more.