Apr 5, 2011
Will God Protect Us? On Listening, Asking, and Trusting
When I think about God as a protector, I want someone who will shield me from the hardships of life. I want him to protect me from flat tires, heartbreak, cancer, persecution, and, just being painfully honest here, the Tea Party.
It’s tempting to read the verses in the Bible of God as a protector with a kind of absolute interpretation—applying these verses to myself directly as true for all times and places. If I read about God as a shield, I want him to be a shield in all situations.
Such a line of interpretation is tough to sort out. In one sense, we’ll never know how many times God actually protected us. However, in a world with free will to one degree or another, we can’t get around the fact that hardships await us—Jesus promised us as much.
If we want to preserve our relationships with God and avoid the crushing disappointment of misplaced expectations, it will help to examine some ways that God’s protection may work. I understand that my experiences may not be normative for everyone, nor could this post be exhaustive, so I welcome your feedback and stories in the comments.
God Guides Us
God speaks to his people who are willing to listen—Jesus said my sheep hear my voice. That doesn’t mean he reveals everything to us—not even Jesus knew when God’s Kingdom would be fully restored to earth. Nevertheless, we can benefit by the guidance and wisdom of God in certain situations. That may result in our protection and will certainly help us accomplish God’s work on earth.
God Wants Us to Ask
Jesus makes it clear that we should persistently ask God for what we need, but that doesn’t mean we’ll always ask God for what is good for us, what is realistic, or what is God’s best for us. In fact, I’ve sometimes asked God for things that weren’t good for me—things that would have only continued my dependence on idols. It is good to ask for God’s protection sometimes, but only after we have listened for God’s direction and have said, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done.”
God Does Not Follow Formulas and Incantations
Tim mentioned yesterday in a comment that there is no magic formula or prayer that binds God to act in a certain way. In addition, God’s deliverance in one situation does not mean it will be replicated. There were prophets who were both delivered from their enemies and prophets who were attacked.
God Can Protect Us
All of this points to the fact that God can protect us, but his first goal is to shape us into his chosen people who know him intimately and who can bring his Kingdom’s loving rule to earth. That means our protection is more of a by-product of God’s Kingdom coming than a perk we get in return for our allegiance. The more we embrace the Kingdom, the more we can enjoy the healing and restoration it brings, even if we may face trials and hardships at the same time.
God Can Use Hardships
This sounds like a terrible Christian cliché, but I’m pretty sure I can say that each hardship in my life has been used by God in one way or another to help someone else or to draw myself and others closer to himself. Perhaps this is because pain shocks us out of our routines and forces us to encounter God in fresh ways, breaking the hold of bad habits or false perceptions.
God’s Perspective on Tragedy is Different from Our Own
As much as I like the idea of the world having an Ed Cyzewski around, the reality I’ve had to confront is that God has work for me to accomplish, I need to seek him and his Kingdom first (asking God what I can do for him), and then God will call me to himself when my time is up. Paul writes about being absent from the body and present with God, which certainly makes death seem more like a transition into something better than the end of something good.
In fact, I’ve had to accept that God’s perception of pain and tragedy is a bit different from my own. While the Bible consistently reveals God as compassionate and mourning with us, he also sees the many good things that we cannot. I want God to give me a long life, but then again, I’m here to love God first and foremost. If my purpose in life is to love God, then it’s not exactly a tragedy if I leave this world to be with him.
God’s Ways are Hard to Understand
We’ll never really know how free will and God’s sovereignty work. The Bible offers us glimpses of both at work. I don’t know why certain prayers are answered and others are not. I don’t know how God’s protection works. One friend of mine asked whether God even protects us in the first place. Perhaps that’s a matter of perspective. I don’t know. Any time we try to say, “I know God is just like this…” I get nervous.
At best we have approximations and informed opinions based on scripture, tradition, and experience.
We know that God wants us to pray, to ask for things, and to trust him as our shield. It sure seems like he wants us to trust him for his protection, but not before we’ve sought him out and made his Kingdom our primary concern.
I think that’s why folks with Stephen, Paul, Aquilla, and Priscilla were able to face mobs and executioners. They saw God as their mighty deliverer and protector, but they also understood that they needed to lay their lives on the line for his Kingdom and not count their lives as anything worth protecting. The Kingdom came first, God’s protection either followed or didn’t follow.
However, in a more eternal sense, God does protect and deliver his people from sin and the power of death. That is the ultimate victory.
Shane Claiborn writes that the beauty of Christianity is that even if we are killed, God will resurrect us. In a sense, God’s people are unstoppable. Even in the seeming loss of death, we’ve actually taken another step toward our victory.
What This Means for Us
There is a lot at stake when we pray. We have very good reason to listen, to wait on God. If we want to ask for God’s protection, we’d better make sure we’re on the same page as God, moving in step with his Kingdom.
We can misunderstand and misrepresent God if we always expect him to deliver us from pain or hardship or if we always expect him to answer our prayers precisely. It’s far more important to seek his Kingdom and his Spirit’s leading voice. That will lead us to safety and security in him, even if our life circumstances seem anything but safe.
For those seeking first God’s Kingdom, Jesus promises trials and hardships, but he also promises healing, protection, restoration, and provision. Until we wrap our minds around what God’s Kingdom means for us, we’ll probably never quite understand what that healing, protection, restoration, or provision will look like.
I have to admit—I love this list and can REALLY relate to it:
“I want him to protect me from flat tires, heartbreak, cancer, persecution, and, just being painfully honest here, the Tea Party.”
Thanks for understanding where I’m at AND guiding me toward a better, more trusting place.
Here’s an awesome example of how we can trust God even in the midst of bad things. Our good friend and long time ministry partner, Nancy, fell and broke her wrist Sunday. She is older and suffers some recent and rapidly progressing memory loss. We got this note from her husband today as many people have been praying for her (and them).
Russ: The initial news was not good – they were talking about surgery with pins, external clamps, hospitalization, etc. Obviously this would not be an easy route for Nancy.
At her appointment today with the orthopaedic man, new x-rays were taken and lo and behold, the bones were relocated from the first x-rays (Sunday PM) into a much more favorable position and the conclusion was “no surgery was called for.”
We thank you for praying and we thank God for answering your prayers.
The doctor said to expect some stiffness and perhaps some loss of range of motion – I am not expecting any such thing. Our experience is that our God does not heal someone halfway and then stop.
Me: So, even when bad things happen, He’s right there to heal and restore and make new. What a God!
Honored to be mentioned here – thanks. Appreciate what you are saying here – especially the importance of trust in the midst of suffering.
While I believe that God loves us and “knows ever hair on our heads”, I don’t believe God micro-manages each of our affairs. For me, this creates trust as opposed to treating God like a good-luck charm of some sort.
Thanks Ed.
At first blush, Ed, I thought, “holy schnikes, he’s writing up a storm today.”
It was worth the time to read it all.
not sure if you’ve read, ” Can God Be Trusted?: Faith and the Challenge of Evil” by John G. Stackhouse
it really touches on many point you bring up, and was a “lightbulb book” for me, my baggage, and my view of God in light of troubled times, and pain.
I’m noticing a lot of my blogging pals are, like me, writing on redemption today.
Bless you.
Lisa
Gonna through a few things out there on this one.
God’s purpose for us, on this earth, is the expansion of his kingdom here on earth.
Often our suffering causes us to grow, to be more capable of being used by God to expand his kingdom.
If God always moved on our behalf to make us more comfortable then, at times, the expansion of his kingdom would be hampered.
Sometimes God moving on our behalf to make us more comfortable is helpful in expanding the kingdom.
Often, God moving on the behalf of an unbeliever to make them more comfortable will benefit the expansion of his kingdom.
We should spend more time praying for unbelievers than believers if we want to see the expansion of God’s kingdom.
We should seek the expansion of God’s kingdom, and accept everything that he sends us as a blessing, whether it makes us comfortable or not.
*Throw, not through.
I was praying this morning about a woman who I have prayed for her healing. She has been in a vegie state for three years after giving birth she suffered brain damage due to a complication, she can`t communicate and is in a semi coma type condition. I know God can heal her so I went to pray for her twice and on both occasions she responded, once she tried to talk and the second occasion a tear came down from her eye. Yet still she remains in this same condition, so believing that faith comes by hearing the word of God I took a CD full of Hebrew scripture from the old and new testament all about Gods healing translated into English. I gave it to staff and asked them to play it to her each day believing she would hear and receive a word from God.
Yet she still remains in the same condition, is it her ability to receive from God hindered by her lack of faith or sin in her life that she can`t repent of as she isn`t able to communicate?
As I prayed today about this asking God why hasn`t she been healed he showed me a picture.
A man being arrested by Police and on his shoulder he had the word USON, then the word came “unconditionally discharged”. The man was being wrestled away by the Police.
So I looked up USON on the net and tried to get a translation what does it mean Lord? I place in the Philippines and then this website.
Does this mean that the Lord through prayer is removing the last obstacle in the way of this ladies healing as I pray and wrestle over her condition in prayer USON is a place in God us praying and relying on him to do, to answer, to give instruction for us to believe on and follow in obedience.
I`ve just looked up the meaning of unconditional discharge, it means and absolute discharge without having to pay for any debt, it may be that an offense has occurred but under the circumstances it would be unjust to administer a punishment. It is a release from any disability no conditions attached.