impinged

Seek life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
- quoted from Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

These final verses are our marching orders. They give us the confidence to live out the above statement. We are free to live a life of adventure without fear. It isn’t a license to be foolish; however, it is a license to claim God’s promises to protect us. He promises to honor us, give us long life and salvation.

But wait, that sounds good but I know we’ve all gone through hard times and seen God honoring people die way too young. So how can this be? We need to remember God looks at us from an eternal perspective. His promises are eternal. This also gives us great confidence because we can trust that he knows what he is doing even when we can’t see what it is ourself.

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If we walk with God he will provide protection. He protects us as his chosen ones. He sends his angels to protect us. How awesome is that? If we cry out to him for help he will be with us in our troubles and rescue us. As I think about this though, God requires more than a passing glance or a panicked shout for help. He is asking us here to put our lives in his hands. Make him your refuge - living your life in him. Just like you physically dwell in a house, mentally and spiritually dwell with him. I think we often cry out to God in our pain wondering why he hasn’t protected us, but we have it all wrong. We spend much of our lives living on our own thinking we can do it ourselves and only seeking God when that stops working. If we live all our lives in desperate pursuit of Him, he becomes our shelter.

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Again I’ve really had to work out what God is saying in these verses with my pen. And then from pen and paper it is transcribed to here.

My understanding of what the Psalmist is saying is this: because we are in the world and evil is in the world, we will see evil. Evil may be all around us and we will see evil people prosper. However, as long as our trust, hope and faith are in God, the evil cannot enter us but it may affect us. Our perspective must be that of a spectator because we have a secret and that secret is we know who wins in the end. That is what we need to keep in mind for we don’t know what God is doing, and even if he told us we might not believe (see Habakkuk), but we do know that Jesus already won.

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I seriously struggled with these verses. For several days I read them over and over in multiple translations - constantly wondering what I would write. I knew I didn’t understand but again I trusted that when today came and it was time to write that God would show up. And he did. As I read the verses again today it was as if the clouds parted and a deep understanding flowed in…

In the past as I read these verses I always thought they said that if we believe in God “He will shield you with his wing.” He will protect us and no evil will befall us. But I know from my own experience that just isn’t true. But if the Bible says it and it isn’t true, then can we really trust the Bible? Oh how this perplexed me spreading doubt in my mind. Then, today as I read I saw something new. In verse 3 it says, “For he will rescue you from every trap.” For some reason I thought that meant we would avoid the traps altogether. Actually it implies that we will get caught in the trap: for who needs rescuing from a trap they haven’t been caught in? Instead, these verses tell us we will have hard times but God always be there to help us through.

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Life is dangerous. We will all face tragedy in life. And the scariest part about that truth is that we have no control over it. So how do we deal with the very real fears of everyday life? I used to be afraid of many things. Driving in the rain at night would give me visions of hydro-planing head long into a semi. Today it doesn’t bother me. Why? Because I’ve realized I am a child of God and he holds the universe in his hands. I know that no fate will befall me that he doesn’t allow. That doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to me. It also doesn’t give me license to be foolish. It just means that I trust God and whatever happens he will see me through.

Click here to read the verses for yourself