I will not fear

 This week's verses are Psalm 27:1-5:

The Lord is my light and my salvation.
I fear no one.
The Lord protects my life.
I am afraid of no one.
When evil men attack me
to devour my flesh,
when my adversaries and enemies attack me,
they stumble and fall.
Even when an army is deployed against me,
I do not fear.
Even when war is imminent,
I remain confident.
I have asked the Lord for one thing—
this is what I desire!
I want to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life,
so I can gaze at the splendor of the Lord
and contemplate in his temple.
He will surely give me shelter in the day of danger;
he will hide me in his home.
He will place me on an inaccessible rocky summit.

 This is one of the many psalms that thank God for his miraculous protection. Most of them were written by King David, and he was in a lot of dangerous situations that God helped him out of. So we can be confident that these verses are based on real life experience, and aren't just some wishful thinking.

It is surprising how many extreme situations David mentions here, followed each time by a statement that he does not have fear: death threats, scheming attacks by evil men, conspiracies, even hostile military action and the threat of war. None of them are bigger than his confidence in God.

Think of the things that cause us to worry: missing a train, getting old, getting fired, losing something or someone, the boss not liking our presentation, the roast burning before we get home. Compare those things to the action movie plots King David lists as being no big deal when God is his protection. We're weak! But there's a secret to being strong.

David's main priority is being so close to God that the enemy can't get him. He wants to live his whole life in God's house. He says that God will place him on an inaccessible rocky summit where no one can reach him. He says that God will give him shelter and hide him in his home. That's a really intimate level of protection.

If you hide someone in your home, you're inviting an attacker to enter the place where you are most vulnerable, the place where your family and friends might stay. You're putting everything at risk to protect this person, like people did when they hid Jews in their homes during the Nazi regime. It's not the same as if you just put them up in a hotel with a bodyguard assigned or something. You are making their problem your problem.

We can see why King David had such confidence in God's protection. He was a personal guest of the most powerful being in the universe. If an army entered into God's house to try to take him, how do you think it would turn out for them? Anyone who tries to harm him would quickly find out that it's not going to happen the way they planned.

Funny story: I had planned to teach on these verses this week anyway, but as I was distracted and running late today, I saw an index card poking out from under my air purifier fan. I pulled it out, and it had these verses on it, and the note: "take inventory of your fears and turn them over to God." I must have written it years ago and put it in my box of devotional ideas, only to have it fall out without me realizing it, until I needed it for my Bible study!

So, take some time this week and take an inventory of your fears. And think about what it would look like to be so intimate with God that he invites you to live in his home with him. Ask God to lead you into that closeness with him, and turn your fears over to him one by one in exchange for his protection.