God’s Your Guardian

Right after 9/11, my big sister Lauretta, who’s a psychologist—a licensed psychotherapist—shared great advice: “Turn off the news.” No, don’t bury your head in the sand. She wasn’t saying that. But stop obsessing — about the tragedy, the deaths, collapsed buildings, downed airplanes, all of it.

And you know where this is going. As the world battles the COVID-19 outbreak, where will we put our trust? On the nonstop news, with those crawl lines rolling ad infinitum under every broadcast?

Or will we put our trust in God?

“God’s your Guardian,” says Psalm 121:5 (MSG) — and to that promise we cling tightly. But will God save us? Will God help us?

IS HE ENOUGH?

Such questions aren’t academic, not now, especially if you grew up — as Lauretta and I did (and some of you) — before vaccines for dreaded diseases, such as polio, measles, chicken pox, mumps. They raged through a neighborhood or school like fire.

As sisters, we both came down with all of these scourges except polio. But during my husband’s childhood, he watched close friend and neighbor Henry contract polio, leaving Henry with a severe limp on one side of his body for the rest of his life.

Dan got a powerful gamma globulin shot to boost his immunity — so massive it temporarily knocked him flat. But what did God do? He guarded. He watched over.

YET HE STILL GUARDS

And He still watches. “Before I even knew Him,” Dan now declares, “He was watching.”

I reflect on God’s guardianship today, thinking not just about Dan — and Lauretta, Henry, me and our generation — but about Charles Spurgeon, a nineteenth century British evangelist. During London’s great cholera epidemic of 1854, Spurgeon drove himself to despair serving the sick, dying, and grief-stricken while pastoring his overwhelmed congregation. As he said:

“All day, and sometimes all night long, I went about from house to house, and saw men and women dying, and, oh, how glad they were to see my face!”

But finally physically and mentally exhausted, he said, “My burden was heavier than I could bear, and I was ready to sink under it.”

NO PLAGUE SHALL COME NIGH

Dragging himself home after yet another funeral, he noticed, “as God would have it,” a humble paper pasted in a shoemaker’s window with these words written in “bold good handwriting”:

“Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” Yes, strong words from another psalm — this one Psalm 91 (vv. 9-10 KJV).

GOD STANDS GUARD

Reading it, a bell went off. Cholera killed 23,000 people in Great Britain in 1854. As it raged, however, what it didn’t afflict was Spurgeon’s mind. God stood guard there, protecting Spurgeon’s thinking — giving him the mind of Christ.

And, thus, protecting his faith.

(Clear thinking also inspired London physician John Snow to connect cholera to contaminated water. As soon as he convinced a London local council to remove the handle from a pump in Soho, the deadly epidemic there ended immediately.)

As The Message Bible declares:

“God’s your guardian.” He’s “right at your side to protect you…God guards you from every evil, he guards your very life.” Therefore, “He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always. (Psalm 121:5-8 MSG)

Sure, this Song of Ascent was written to encourage Israel’s pilgrims as they climbed dangerous hills to worship in Jerusalem.

The deep truth of it, however, is that God as their Guardian kept the lid on their frazzled, fearful, worried heads. He’ll do the same for us today.

And coronavirus? God is more than enough. So, He offers not our phones to grab first thing in the morning, but His Word to hold close. Not our worries to stir up and glorify, but His blessed assurance to trust. He helps us to have faith, but not act foolishly. To sanitize, but stay sane. To avoid crowds, but stay close to Him.

HE GOES WITH US

When? When we go out and come in. His promise:

“I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2 NIV) — keeping our heads on straight, our eyes focused on Him. Then what do we see? Even in times like these?

He’s all we need.

—Written by Patricia Raybon. Used by permission of the author. Click here to connect with Patricia.