An encouraging message in song from pickleheavenpress.com and Family N Friends.
What did Jesus mean when He said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” – Hebrews 13:5. The song attempts to answer the question. Enjoy!
Tag: security
I live toward the end of an alley in Texas – a Tornado Alley. The term was coined in 1952 to describe the region of the U.S. where tornadoes are most frequent.
My son lives in Kansas in the middle of Tornado Alley. When we make the drive to visit him, we sometimes play, “I spy” and count the number of homes we pass that still have Wizard of Oz styled storm shelters.
Earlier this year we were on the road in north central Oklahoma. We heard a report on the car radio of twisters in the neighborhood. Shortly after, we saw a storm chaser vehicle, which was when we turned back making our car a storm eluder vehicle.
Tornados can be terrifying, but great stories can come out of gruesome storms.
Several years ago, a tornado was headed toward Marshall, Texas. As it approached, an employee of the Domino’s Pizza store happened to see it coming.
Customers and employees were gripped by a wave of terror. Some wanted to jump in their cars or run to a bigger more substantial building, but the quick-thinking manager rounded everyone up and led them into the walk-in cooler.
Seconds later, the storm whipped its way over them. They could feel the cooler tremble from the ferocious winds. Urgent silent prayers were offered.
Once it passed, they emerged. The building that had once housed the cooler was entirely leveled – reduced to a pile of rubble. The only survivors – the walk-in cooler and the people who had sheltered there.
How wise! Instead of trying to outrun the storm, they ran into a safe place.
I imagine we all could use a safe place. David wrote of such a place in Psalm 91,
“As for you, the one who lives in the shelter of the Most High and resides in the protective shadow of the Sovereign One. I say this about the Lord, my shelter and my stronghold my God in whom I trust” (vrs. 1-2).
David tells us that the Lord Himself is this place of safety. It is in knowing Him and doing life with Him that security is found. And this security is comprehensive. Those folks in Marshall, found a temporary shelter in the storm, but David speaks of living in and residing in the protective shadow of the Lord.
He went on to say, “He will certainly rescue you from the snare of the hunter and from the destructive plague. He will shelter you with his wings; you will find safety under his wings. His faithfulness is like a shield or a protective wall (vrs. 3-4).
Like baby chicks, we gather under the wings of the Lord, and find protection from predator and plague. He is as immovable and stout in His defense as a wall made of massive stone blocks.
David also said, “You need not fear the terrors of the night, the arrow that flies by day, the plague that stalks in the darkness, or the disease that ravages at noon. Though a thousand may fall beside you, and a multitude on your right side, it will not reach you” (vrs. 5-7). NETBible ®
He made a point of mentioning night-terrors. I am over 70 and yet it still seems that whatever fears I may have, seem to be exaggerated in the dark. Daylight tends to put the things that scare us into proper focus, while there is no limit to them at night. Our foes seem to be far more terrible and our troubles more troublesome when the lights go out.
But David said, “You need not fear the terrors of the night.” We need not fear those imaginations of terrible things that could potentially happen. We need not – if we know the Lord and are doing life with Him.
What anxieties visit you when you close your eyes at night? Tame them! Read Psalm 91 before bed and thank your protector in prayer for keeping you secure.
A PRAYER: So glad that we have You our Lord!
This has been Jim Johnson and pickleheavenpress.com
May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you!
Scripture references are from the NETBible®
I bought my car, thinking that I would drive it to the funeral home on the day I died. The mileage was low, and it was a reliable car.
It should have lasted, but then I became a Hospice Chaplain. Now I use my car to travel all over East Texas, and the numbers on my odometer are rising faster than the national debt. Now I wonder if I am going to have enough car left at the end of the year.
I am guessing that this may be what the Jewish folk felt like when they trod the wilderness.
They were famished and they let God know about it. He provided in this way, “and in the morning a layer of dew was all around the camp. When the layer of dew had evaporated, there on the surface of the wilderness was a thin flaky substance, thin like frost on the earth. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” – Exodus 16:13-15
“What is it?” My mom would have spanked me for insulting one of her meals like that.
Israel gave it a name. they called it, “manna” and it was delicious. The text says, “it tasted like wafers with honey.” (16:31)
And with this manna they made all kinds of good things to eat like ba-manna bread and manna-cotti. OK maybe not.
An interesting tidbit – Jewish tradition suggests that manna adjusted to the culinary preferences of each individual who could, by wishing, taste in it anything he or she desired. Why can’t bologna be like that!
Manna was nutritional and tasty, but its availability was perplexing. God caused it to fall from heaven to the ground every morning. By noon the manna dissipated.
Each person was instructed to gather an omer of it which was about 4 lbs. each day. But God made sure, that regardless of how much they gathered, it always amounted to 1 omer. (16:16-18)
So, suppose that Ezra and his family were starving. And Ezra saw this food from heaven manna-fested on the ground. He, therefore, gathered his daily share and maybe a little extra to store for the weeks ahead. A wasted effort because God would deliberately reduce his gleanings to one omer.
Plan B: Eat less than an omer a day and save the excess for the future. Unfortunately, God conspired with worms who would ruin the leftovers each night. (16:19-20)
There was but one exception. They could gather excess on the 6th day to also cover for the Sabbath on the 7th. (16:22-23)
Silly Ezra went to gather on the 7th day as well, but God had withheld it, and there was nothing to gather. (16:27)
The Lord put His people in a peculiar situation. He chose to provide for them strictly on a day-to-day basis. They could not prepare for the future but were required to trust God for His daily provision.
When my fictitious friend Ezra went out to gather in the morning, he must have wondered, “Will this be enough?” And yet, each day he found that it was – just enough, and continued to be for the forty years he lived in the wilderness. (35)
I guess I am too much like Ezra. When I watch my odometer rack up the miles, I am gripped by the same kind of anxiety, “Will this car have enough life left in it to serve me into the future?”
I want to plan and provision my life to the nth degree. I want to rely on my planning instead of my heavenly provider.
Perhaps Jesus was thinking about the manna when He taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Or in my case, “my daily miles.”
I suppose that this should become my prayer – maybe our prayer.
A PRAYER: Lord how silly we are to believe that our security rests in our self-made plans and provisions. Help us to proceed each day by faith in You.
This has been Jim Johnson and pickleheavenpress.com
May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you
Scripture references are from the NETBible.org. ®
I believe in automotive distancing as in, “Hey buddy, I can do without the tailgating.”
Twas, on a Saturday night in Dallas that it became a problem. The evening started well. The leader of the singles group led us in study of Psalm 139.
I was new to the faith, but I had a voracious appetite for God’s Word. David the author tried in his small way to explain God’s great way. He wrote, “O Lord, you examine me and know me.” (verse 1) That’s powerful! I’m not even sure I know myself much of the time.
He explained, “You know when I sit down and when I get up; even from far away you understand my motives. You carefully observe me when I travel or when I lie down to rest; you are aware of everything I do. “Certainly my tongue does not frame a word without you, O Lord, being thoroughly aware of it.” (139:2-4)
Such things can only be said of a God who is all the time everywhere; awesome in power and is all knowing. Theologians call this His omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience.
Then David said in verse 5 “You squeeze me in from behind and in front; you place your hand on me.” He spoke as if God used a Star Trek like force field, that preceded and followed him. So, God surrounds us to protect us. I was genuinely awed as I mulled this over.
I drove a borrowed car that night – a bright new yellow Camaro convertible. Hey, it was a singles fellowship – I wanted to impress the girls.
On the way home, I pulled up beside a mobile beer bash. The light changed and I moved on, but they didn’t. The driver waited until I was about 30 yards ahead. He stomped the gas pedal until he was inches from my bumper and then screeched to a stop.
I was confused and stunned, but then he did it again and a third time. His next move was to pull in front of me and slow down. We were almost bumper to bumper when he locked his brakes again.
He was trying to scare me and it was working. But I was angry too. If I had been in my $100 clunker of a car, we might have met, in an automotive kind of way. Did I mention that I was a new Christian?
He was behind me again and ready to make another run. And do you know what was going through my mind? “God how far before and behind me do you go, and does it include the length of this car?”
In those days I tended to literally interpret the Bible – I still do, mostly because God literally fulfills what He has written, including His promise of protection.
I did a mission trip in Mexico and during that one week God kept my team and me through an earthquake, a volcanic eruption and a street gang. At another time, our team barely escaped some angry Haitians who were waiting in the dark to stone us.
His protective care is not always so sensational and yet still appreciated.
I think of a friend who had met his deductible on his health insurance – so on a whim he decided to have a battery of health tests done.
They indicated that he was already dead or at least close. His arteries were almost completely occluded. There should have been great pain to warn him, but there wasn’t, but because of the tests he was able to have surgery before the widow maker hit. That was God at work.
Now I know that we are not going to live forever in these bodies. But God will keep us temporally secure until the day He chooses to eternally secure us in heaven.
In the meantime, if you belong to Him – then go with God. Relax a little as He takes the point AND brings up the rear.
Oh, and as to my distancing problem – at the very time I prayed, I came upon a well-lit convenience store with a pay phone in front of it. (a pay phone – now that’s a miracle)
I whipped the car in, did some brake stomping of my own and grabbed the phone – and they fled the scene. Thank You Lord!
A PRAYER: Lord I am not courageous enough to face life alone. Please go before and behind me and open my eyes to see the ways in which You are protecting me
All Scripture is quoted from the NET Bible ®
Pickle Heaven Press-James R. Johnson 