He quotes a woman from Shuqualak, Miss., Cindy Moore, about the aftermath. Her sister and niece were in a "cinder block building, going through items for a yard sale, only a few hundred feet from her home on Mississippi 21. “When I looked out, there was nothing left of it but a pile of rubble,” Moore said. “I went running as fast as I could. A family that I guess had been passing by stopped and was frantically digging through the debris. All of a sudden I saw my niece’s head pop up. Then I saw my sister trying to crawl out of it. Nothing but the grace of God kept them alive. There is no other way they could have survived that.”
Let's explore that a minute. Did God protect them from the storm? Does He? What about the person who was killed in Kemper County by the same storm? Was this person not cared for by God? Was this person not as "good" of a Christian.
What about God's protection for everyone?
Isaiah's prophecy says, "The Lord says to his people, When the time comes to save you, I will show you favor and answer your cries for help. I will guard and protect you and through you make a covenant with all peoples."
Written, of course, for Israel, but we (being) all peoples can take great happy, happy, happy as well with these words.
He will guard and protect us means that all the stuff that happens with seemingly great regularity is just that, stuff.
But this notion is not uncommon. Just a few of the promises of being protected include:
For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. Deuteronomy 10: 17-19
He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. 1 Samuel 2: 9
The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my savior; thou saved me from violence. I will call on the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. 2 Samuel 22: 3-4
I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makes me dwell in safety. Psalm 4: 8
All that sounds wonderful. The problem is, I think, when we look around and see all the stuff happening, and we decide (sometimes with pretty good reason), that we're not protected all that well. Did the protection stop when we stopped saying thou?
When we lose loved ones, when we lose jobs, when we lose retirements, when we lose... well, where exactly was that protection again?
There's a story about a man who was afraid of everything. He decided that, in order to be safe he would buy a suit of armor. When he put on the armor, he felt relieved. "Now I feel really protected,'' he thought. But then a mosquito came along and began to circle around his nose. Waving the mosquito away violently with his arm, he lost his balance and fell to the ground. He never got up again. He was trapped in his own defense system.
Now, there's the Bible account of almost 300 people lost at sea, drifting 14 days during a raging storm. The Apostle Paul prayed to God, and they were saved.
And there's the story about young David, who later
became King of Israel. As you remember, David fought an enemy soldier named
Goliath. Goliath had made fun of the soldiers every day, boasting that none of
them would dare fight him. He had reason to boast: He was a giant, over nine
feet tall, and impressively armed. Everyone was afraid of him. Only a young shepherd boy, David, accepted the
challenge. The king put a suit of armor on
David, but then the boy couldn't move because of the enormous weight of the
metal. But David didn't need any armor to
feel protected. He reasoned like this: "The Lord that delivered me out of the
paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the
hand of this Philistine" (I Sam. 17:37). He took off the useless armor and went
to meet the giant.
So, there's no question that God did more than his share of protecting in the scriptures. The question, however, is does he protect us today? If we go to church, pray regularly, do all the right things as best we can, even tithe our fortunes away, will he protect us?
Can and will God protect me, you, your
husband, your wife, your sons and daughters when they go out at night? Your work,
your home, your health?
Here's my take. Add your own in the comment section.
God's protection doesn't mean that nothing will ever happen to us. If none of us who have prayed for others to be healed so as not to die actually were healed and never died, we would run out of food on this planet pretty quickly.
God's protection, I think, is better suited to Romans 8: 28: We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose."
We can argue and debate what that means, too. But I believe it means that even if the storm whacks us like a bad Mafia show would, God can take that and make something good out of it. If we lose _________, God can take that circumstance and make something good.
Is that protection in the manner we would like it to be? Probably not. But it is God's way. It doesn't mean we won't go through stuff. It means we will make it through. Sometimes that's all it takes for those who love him.
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