Safety In the Shadow of The Lord
September 28, 2025 Message:
“Safety In The Shadow of The Lord”
Deb Beutel, Lay Leader
Have you ever been in a situation where you were really scared? I am sure that all of us have been in a situation where we were really afraid at some point in our lives. And how do you react when you are really, really scared?
There was one time when Ken and I and our oldest son James were on a camping trip at Lunga Reservoir in Quantico Marine Corps Base with Church friends. We went to bed and were all tucked in safe and sound and did what we do every night, we said our prayers out loud together. Only this time we inadvertently forgot to speak the word “Power” in the Lord’s prayer. Well, we fell asleep and a couple of hours later we awoke to a horrendous wind and rainstorm and we heard what sounded like trash cans smashing above our heads. I stuck my head outside our tent and I saw the metal canoes that were on Lunga Lake flying over the tent. I immediately laid down on top of James and we prayed. The storm went on for awhile and finally calmed to the point where we could stuff the wet tents, wet sleeping bags and wet kid into the Ford Explorer and head home to safety. There were reports on the local radio station of a water spout and rumors of an entire tent of campers having been lifted of the ground in our campsite. It was definitely a really scary experience. But, thankfully we were calmed by our prayers to a mighty Gd who is our fortress.
I often wonder how unbelievers deal with fearful situations? Where do they find comfort and solace? We are so blessed to have a Loving God who is always with us. But, I wonder, at what point in our lives did we first really understand and know that God is our Fortress? Was it in a Sunday School class when you were little and your Sunday School teacher was teacher you from Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” I used that verse a lot with younger children when I taught Sunday School. I used to ask the kids if they knew God’s Phone number and then read them Jermiah 33:3 and told them that was his phone number. We even made bookmarks for our bibles that looked like cell phones with that scripture verse on it! It is such a comfort to know that God wants us to call on him whenever we need him!
I can’t seem to remember exactly when I first encountered Psalm 91, I think I was a young mother, going through a difficult divorce and having just recently joined a Methodist church and I loved the idea that reading Psalm 91:1 was like calling 9-1-1: “You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty…” There is a sense of safety and security, a feeling that somehow everything will be okay. That’s definitely the feeling I want to feel if I have to call 9-1-1, and let’s face it, there are a lot of emergencies in our world right now, many of which are bigger than a whole fleet of fire trucks can fix. But, the truth and reassurance we have as believers is that our awesome God has the power to fix them all!
Verse 1 of our text acts as the thesis statement for Psalm 91, the lens through which everything else should be read. God delivers because God is our shelter. God covers us with pinion because we abide in God. God will rescue us when we call because we live in God’s shadow. There is wisdom in verse 1 that we should carry with us every day of our lives in everything we do! The wisdom is namely that people need to feel safe and secure to be brave, especially when there is do much darkness in the World around us. Notice that further in the reading, the psalmist encounters pestilence, arrows, and destruction as they live in the shadow of the Almighty. We need the security of abiding in God so that we can brave the trials and struggles of this life together.
We need to be surrounded by a fellowship of believers to help us feel God’s sense of safety and security. We need to be on Worship together to uplift one another, to pray together, to sing comforting hymns and praise and worship songs to remind us especially Monday thru Saturdays that God is our Fortress. When we have a couple of emotionally difficult weeks to get though, we need to do it together as a body of believers! Maybe we need to take a little more time in our daily scripture reading, or join a bible study, or allow ourselves to take time to breathe in God’s unending Love in order to calm everyone’s collective nervous systems. We need to pray for each other and remind each other that we have an awesome God! One of the biggest reasons for attending Worship on Sundays besides worshiping an awesome God, is to be in the company of a body of believers and help each other and our community feel safe together. Then, as we boldly name the safety of living together in the shelter of God, we can be inspired and emboldened to call out to others in the community, and to bring that safety to others, to invite others to abide in God’s shelter, to bravely face the world knowing that our security comes from the God who rescues us.
We live in love. That is the secret of our existence. We are surrounded by a love that is almost indescribable. It may not feel like it because at times we might feel disconnected from this love. We’re wandering in the wilderness. But remember wilderness for Jesus isn’t the wilderness we think of. His wilderness was a desert. It was rocks and sand, was sun beating down, sapping strength and life, it was dry, parched, sere. Exposed and vulnerable. So, Psalm 91 was a blessing. You who live in the shelter, who abide in the shadow. It was not hiding, it was relief. Relief from the blazing sun.
You who abide in shadow. Ahh, can you feel it? The cloud that covers the sun for a moment, and suddenly you can stand straighter, can run a little further, can open your eyes again and see what surrounds you. Relief. God’s love is a relief. Relief from the dry feeling of isolation and abandonment. Relief from the hearts parched from a lack of love that they can sense or receive. Residing in the cool shadow of acceptance and security. Standing up straighter instead of bent over from the weight of emptiness. My refuge and my fortress; my God in whom I trust.
For what? Trust God for what?
Sometimes our guts wonder. We feel abandoned at times. At other times we feel inadequate, like we disappointed God. But we know better. We know that God’s love is constant and unconditional. And Psalm 91 simply says there is nothing that can happen to us to take it away. The last two verses explain the promises.
“When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.” Verse fifteen says God promises to answer whenever we call. We don’t always hear the answer because we’ve moved out of hearing distance, or because we haven’t learned the language of God well enough, or because we’ve set up a hoop for God to jump through and God hates hoops. But the promise is God will always answer. The second promise from this verse is that God will be with us. “I will be with them in trouble.” We’d prefer God keep us from trouble, but since a lot of the trouble we’re in is our own fault and God gives us the freedom to wander away, we should celebrate the good news that even our stubbornness, even our bad choices, even our attempting to take God’s place doesn’t keep God from being with us.
But wait, that verse does say rescue! “I will rescue them, and honor them.” We are rescued. Verse sixteen says “with long life I will satisfy them and show them my salvation.” What could be longer than eternity? That’s the promise. That’s the rescue. We want often want something more temporal, because our secular society has us seeking FAST FOOD, Instant this and Instant that... but thankfully, God thinks big picture. And he tries to show it to us. Invites us to live it now. Another way of thinking about this protection is to say let’s live like God wants us to and see if our lives aren’t better, more full, more alive. Let’s love like God encourages us to and see if we aren’t better people and more loving to all those around us.