August 22 - Security and Trust
This psalm begins with a general declaration of how one may receive security followed by a personal response to the Lord in the first two verses. Security is found only in the Lord Most High, the Almighty and nowhere else. One has to live under His shelter or abide in His shadow to have security. When the Lord is all over you and when He steps before you, you can experience total security.
To have such kind of security, one also must trust in the Lord. Trust is the way to access the God-given security. So the psalmist addresses the Lord as: “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” God’s protection does not go to everyone but only to those who put their trust in Him. The more trust one puts in God, the more secure that person would be. Security is directly proportional to our trusting the Lord for only the Lord is trustworthy. His faithfulness will act as a shield and buckler for us in times of trouble and fear.
Like the psalmist, we all face different kinds of dangers in our lives. The fowler’s snare represents human attacks from our enemies. They can come at us in the daytime with arrows or come to us in the night with terror and fear. The attacks can be physical or psychological, causing us to fall into their traps and be captured. The outbreak of illnesses or diseases either through deadly pestilences or the sicknesses that can waste away our mortal bodies are all very horrifying even as one thinks about them. These may come to you when you are aware (in the daytime) or when you are not aware (in the nighttime). Have you been thinking about these things lately?
God’s protection and security go to those who put their trust in Him. Even as harm comes to many others through pestilences and diseases, it will not come near you. Your human enemies, the wicked, cannot hurt you because of God’s shield. Satan complained to God about His protection on Job because Job put all his trust in God. His protection on Job was like setting a hedge around him so his enemies could not get to him. You may also enjoy such security as long as you trust in Him.
Meditate on this psalm again. Identify some of your fears and bring them before the Lord. Declare your trust in Him and give Him all your worries and fears of life. Imagine now that you are living under His shelter and hiding in the shadow of His presence. God is before you, around you, above you and underneath you. You are in His shadow and the enemies cannot see you or shoot their arrows at you now. God is like a mother hen spreading His pinions over you, the enemies must go through Him to get to you. Use your holy imagination again and again as fear has a way of creeping back at you during the day. Trust in the Lord, you are secure!
Ps 91:1-8 Job 4:1-7:21 1 Cor 14:18-40 Prov 21:27