“You are a shield around me, O LORD, my Glorious One, who lifts up my head.” Psalm 3:4
We live in a world of great unrest: riots and terrorist attacks in many places, train bombings and shootings in broad daylight…How can we feel safe?
Late in his reign King David, was forced to flee for his life from Jerusalem because of a revolt led by his rebellious and arrogant son Absalom and a host of traitors. He could have trusted his army to protect him and defeat Absalom but instead He trusted God. “You are a shield around me, O LORD, my Glorious One, who lifts up my head,” he wrote.
Even at night, in the wide open desert without concrete walls around him and a comfortable bed, David was able to sleep. In the morning, he may have shaken his head in surprise as he said, “even here I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.”
The fact that God was His protection was very real to King David for he often wrote about it in the Psalms. “My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—from violent men you save me. You give me your shield of victory; you stoop down to make me great.”
(2 Samuel 22: 3, 36).
Those comforting words are also for us. During times when we feel vulnerable we can say with David, “My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart” (Psalm 7:10). “He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge” (Psalm 144:2).
For a shield to do any good we must use it. We must dwell in the fortress (God) and take up His shield. “Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one,” Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:16.
Dear Father, we thank you that you are greater than anything that could harm us. We trust in your protection and deliverance.
