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.
Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place — the Most High, who is my refuge — no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.
Psalm 91:9-10 (ESV)
I have been struggling HARD lately.
You see, plague has come near my tent. And this has rocked my world.
I have been sharing Psalm 91 with anyone who will listen. I’ve been breaking it down here on my blog for months all with the intent to encourage others, to keep people focused on Jesus and not the EVIL that is everywhere on earth. And I’ve done it to keep blinders on my eyes, so I only look up to Jesus. I was SO sure that I was doing my part of Psalm 91. But now I don’t know anything. I don’t know what God wants from me. Why did He allow sickness into my family? What did I do wrong?
God’s promises all over the Bible — Psalm 91 is not the only place where God gives direct promises IF — are so definitive. If a believer does X, God will make Y happen. The text says so. Look at the verses for today — IF you make God your refuge, NO evil will befall you, NO plague will come near your home. So, what if you do X with your whole heart, but Y doesn’t happen? Does this mean you are a fraud? Does this mean you are delusional and only think you did X with your whole heart? I mean, Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that our hearts are the most deceitful of things. Maybe I am deeply fooling myself?
But maybe I am defining plague wrong?
In my modern way of thinking, a plague is disease. But maybe that is the wrong definition. According to the dictionary, a plague is a disease, but that’s the #2 definition. That’s the definition we are all accustomed to today. The #1 definition of plague is a disastrous evil or affliction, a calamity. A plague then is what happened to Job and his family. Well, that definitely changes how I see Psalm 91.
I read Psalm 91 MY way with my modern definitions and then got majorly hurt feelings when MY way didn’t pan out. But when I think back on the insane years of COVID, I can actually say that no evil has yet befallen on me and my family. The threats are everywhere and constant, but God HAS protected me and my family from evil. And, if I go by the #1 definition for plague, He has also protected me and my family from that as well.
Are you struggling today, dear reader, with a Promise from God that just doesn’t seem to be panning out? Are you worried that maybe you are a fraud? That your faith is not as strong as you thought it was? Maybe, just maybe, your definitions are wrong. Maybe you need your perspective shifted to God’s actual meanings and away from what YOU think is God’s meaning.
My advice to you, dear reader, is the same to me: pray without ceasing. If you are struggling, bring your burdens to God. He wants them. And, who knows, perhaps today’s prayer will be the right prayer and He will shift your perspective and grant you the peace that only He can!
The Christian Fiction Girl 
Oh friend, I LOVE this post today. It spoke right to my heart. Thank you so much!
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Aw! So glad my post spoke to you. Thank you for reading it. 😀 Hope you’re doing well!
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