No Accidents
If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.” —Psalm 91:9-16 NIV
How do you understand these verses?
They are either vastly comforting or supremely disturbing, either amazing promises of a “charmed” life or a cruel irony, a plum dangling before a starving woman, held in the mouth of a cobra.
The devil taunted Jesus with this passage in his effort to get Him to step outside the place He had chosen, the place of absolute submission to the Father. What was Jesus’ response? “Don’t put God to the test,” which was a perfectly submissive response to the Father in the face of temptation. And three years later the angels seem to have stood back and watched this perfect, God-loving man be torn to shreds by lions of Rome and serpents of religious leadership.
How then, do we reconcile this promise that the one who has made the LORD his dwelling place will be protected and guarded and kept from harm?
We must take the long view…like, eternity long.
If God’s word is true (and it is!), then someone like Jesus, who took refuge in God perfectly, should have been kept from harm, disaster-proofed, victorious over vipers and large carnivores, rescued and protected, delivered, answered, honored and given long life. The facts are: He died at age 33, an ignominious, excruciating death, preceded by vast betrayal, injustice, rejection and abandonment by almost everyone, subjected to the rudest kind of kangaroo court. Sounds like a disaster to me!
BUT…
He WAS delivered from death and the grave, exonerated in front of the whole universe, and is seated in triumph and honor on the throne at the Father’s right hand.
So…I must hold to the long view in these kinds of promises, and seek understanding of the ultimate! It is NOT that nothing bad will ever happen. It is NOT that good only comes in the “sweet by and by.”
It seems to me that the things here that will not happen are the “accidents:” Victory over the serpent? YES!
A wrong choice or stray movement affecting final outcomes in a way God did not expect? NO!
Death and difficulty not a thing? NO!
Resurrection into eternal life of bliss in God’s presence? YES!
This is not the promise of a charmed life for those who check the right boxes; this is the certainty, the confident expectation that God is watching over the fulfillment of His word.
Victory in the battle, triumph over the enemy? YES! Protection from random things? YES! Nothing is random or mindless for those who are putting confidence in, swearing allegiance to God! Even failing to consult with God about decisions, leaning on our own understanding …those failures are under God’s vast provision and plan: the one where God works everything together for good for those who make Him their heart’s home.
Yup. Still
Following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
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