“The Lord God is a sun and a shield” (Psalm 84:11).
The sun provides light, heat, and energy, and it promotes growth. A shield provides safety and protection. Describing God as a sun and a shield is appropriate because he provides and protects.
However, someone reading this is thinking, “God is not much of a provider because I still do not have what I need!” Others are wondering, “If God is such a great protector, why am I going through all this trouble?” Is scripture wrong? No, but we need to understand how God provides and protects.
First, God provides daily, not all at once. Think about the Israelites during the Exodus. God provided food in the form of manna, but that manna had to be collected every day (Exodus 16:4-5). It was not able to be stored. The blessing came one day at a time.
Similarly, it is unlikely that God will unload the spiritual blessing dump truck on you. Like so many before us such as Noah, Abraham, Joseph and even the apostles, we must wait on God’s timing. It is not that God cannot provide. He just has not yet.
Secondly, God protects us “in” our troubles, not “from” them. A shield does not stop the arrows from flying, rather, it keeps you safe from their harm. God never said that he would prevent trouble from happening. In fact, Jesus said the exact opposite. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). God’s protection is about peace within the trouble, not a complete absence of difficult events.
The end goal of God’s provision and protection is not that we would have a magic formula to make life easy but that we would learn to trust him. He wants us to live today and to stop brooding over the past or fretting about the future. He is watching. He knows us. He has a plan. Nothing is out of control.
God is providing and protecting! Trust that for your strength today.
“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24)
Why does God need our worship? The events of Matthew 14 provide at least one answer. This chapter starts with the beheading of John the Baptist (verses 1-12). This is the first in a series of events that indicate things are about to become much more difficult for the believers. Next, the scene shifts to a crowd gathered on a hillside in Galilee. After listening to Jesus teach all day, the apostles realized that these people had nothing to eat. They brought the problem to Jesus. He took a child’s lunch and fed the entire group of five thousand men plus women and children. Afterwards, they picked up twelve baskets of leftovers (verses 13-21). Then Jesus told them to get in a boat and cross the Sea of Galilee. As they went, a storm arose, and the apostles were scared. They struggled along until Jesus came to them walking on the water. Peter tried walking on the water too and sank. After Jesus rescued Peter, they got into the boat, and the storm immediately s...
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