Psalm 18:32 “God gives me strength for the battle. He keeps my way secure.” Today's episode talks about how God protects us. He gives us strength to make it through any battles that we might be facing. God also secures our way. He makes a way where there is not way. He secures a way even if we can't see the way until we get there. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
I Am Protected (Identity Series)
Psalm 18:32 “God gives me strength for the battle. He keeps my way secure.” This verse came to me from a challenge that we received in Big Life mentoring this past week. Pamela Crim gave us a list of 14 Bible verses that tell us who God says we are. Our job was to read one verse each day and to pray with it. Read it out loud and really think about what it says. She encouraged us to go online to look up the verse in many different translations. Have you done that before? Have you taken a verse and then checked the other translations to see what words they use? I do this often, and I am always surprised by the words the various translations use. I know they are all saying the same thing, and yet some just hit me more than others. If you haven’t tried this before, or you haven’t done it often, might I suggest you give it a try? I think you will find you like reading the various translations. The website I use to do this is Biblegateway.com. However, there are several different ones you could use.
Today’s verse tells us that we are protected. It begins with the sentence, “God gives me strength for the battle.” This is important to know, as God does give us strength for our battles. Sometimes, we look at the fight we have ahead of us, and we are sure that we don’t have the strength to fight it. We might be looking at a really long custody battle, divorce proceedings, a long medical journey, whatever it may be, and we know we aren’t strong enough for it. Have you ever felt like this, like the road ahead is too hard, too long, too steep, too painful, and that you just don’t have the strength for it? I get it. Life is hard. I know so many who are struggling right now. So many who have way more to handle than any one person ever should.
The important thing to keep in mind is that we are not in this alone. You are probably right. Your situation is more than you can handle on your own, which is why you are lucky that you are not on your own. You have your heavenly Father, who is providing you with the strength you need each day. I know sometimes it doesn’t feel like He is giving you enough strength. Sometimes, it doesn’t feel like you have enough to keep fighting, and yet with each new day comes a renewed strength. He is constantly filling you up so that you can fight your battles. You might not feel as if you are full of strength, and yet you do keep going; you do keep fighting so you can see He is giving you strength.
He keeps my way secure. I think this means that God always makes sure there is a way. God is a way maker and so we don’t have to worry about coming to a point where we are stuck at a dead end where there is no way out. I know it feels like we get to this point sometimes. I know we can reach a point where we can’t see a way out. The way out is not always one that we can see or that we can understand. God can make a way where there isn’t one. This can happen in several different ways.
I read about a person who was getting sued because he did not read the contract carefully, and he was going to lose everything. He knew he didn’t really have a leg to stand on as he did sign the contract and yet he prayed for God to intervene anyway. The lawsuit just went away. It was like it never happened and he never heard anything more about it. There have been people who have been told they or their family members were going to die. They had some illness, like cancer, and there was nothing else the doctors could do for them. Their family members prayed anyway, and God healed them. He took away their illness completely. That is a way forward that we didn’t see ahead of time and we might not have even believed it before seeing it.
I have heard many stories of people who were stuck in a situation and couldn’t see any way out of it. There have been numerous times when my parents were in situations where they couldn’t see a way out, and yet they trusted that God had one, and he never let them down. One time I remember my dad telling me about when God protected him was when a neighbor wanted to fight him. My dad had invited a neighborhood friend to church with our family. She came to church with us, and she was touched by the Lord. She started going regularly and decided she wanted to change her whole life to be in alignment with God.
At the time, she was living with a guy that she was dating, and she no longer felt comfortable with the relationship as it was. She didn’t want to be living with someone she wasn’t married to. I am not sure if she broke up with him or just moved out until they were married or what the exact situation was. I do know that her boyfriend blamed my dad and was really upset with him. We lived in the projects at the time, and so everyone lived very close together, and everyone knew everything about everything. My mom called my dad at work to let him know she heard that this guy was going to fight my dad when he got home from work. My dad got home at the same time every day.
My dad wasn’t really sure what to do about this news, so he prayed the Lord would protect him. When he got home, he could see there was a group of people on our front lawn. The guy who wanted to beat my dad up was there, and then a bunch of kids who wanted to see the fight. My dad paused in his car before getting out and asked the Holy Spirit to come into this situation. He asked God to give him the words to say to these guys to defuse the situation. My dad certainly couldn’t see a way out of this situation. He had no idea what to say or what to do. He needed God’s protection and His wisdom.
My dad got out of the car. He walked up to the man who wanted to fight him, and words just came flowing out of his mouth. He didn’t even know what he was saying. This is what he said, “I know you are in a lot of pain. I know you are hurt, and you feel like punching me will make you feel better. If you think that will help you, then go ahead and punch me. I think what you really need is someone to listen to you. So, let's go inside, and we can talk, and I will listen.” The guy started crying, and they went inside and talked for hours. My dad definitely couldn’t have seen that ending.
This is not something he could have seen coming. The path was not neatly laid out in front of him. He knew he was in trouble that only God could get him out of, and so He asked God to protect Him. I think God likes it when we step out in faith, knowing that He keeps His promises. I don’t know if my dad knew this specific verse or not, and yet I do know they trusted God to protect him and to show him the way out of this situation. You can do the same. You can trust that God is protecting you. He is giving you strength for the battle and keeping your way secure. That is a promise you can stand on.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to know we are protected by you. Help us to feel that protection. Help us lean into you and not to worry about what might happen. Lord, help us to trust that you have secured our way. Help us to step out in faith, knowing you will provide a way, even if it is one we can’t see ahead of time. Help us to trust you, Lord. We love you. You are amazing! You have always come through for us in the past, and we know you always will. We are so grateful, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk Bodly With Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Just a reminder: if you want to receive my newsletter, you can sign up on my website, walkboldlywithjesus.com. I will also put a link in the show notes. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I. Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in July 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “I am the God of love. I am the God of joy. I am the God of hope. Spread all that I tell you to the world. Be not afraid to proclaim that I am your God. Make me known, make me loved. Decide today that you will start now.”