God who is a shield
Psa
3:3 But
you are a shield around me, O LORD
; you bestow glory on me and lift up my
head
We
have seen previously that God sees and God acts. God reigns from heaven
through His anointed on the earth. He is the Lord. Now all of that
could remain purely academic, purely remaining in our mind and leaving
the rest of us untouched, but not so for David. The God who is ‘out
there' is also ‘down here' with us and therefore has effect upon us.
For
David, as he flees from his rebellious son, as he fears for his life,
he sees the Lord as a shield. Remember what a shield is? Something
you hold out in front of you to protect you. We have windshields in
our cars to protect us from the wind as we drive. We have shields
around x-ray machines in hospitals to protect us from the x-rays.
We have shields in nuclear reactors to protect us from harmful radioactivity.
We have sunshield creams to protect us from too much sunshine. A shield
keeps something away, stops something from harming us. Thus for David,
he is able to say that the Lord stands between him and his enemies
to keep them from harming him.
But
more than this; he says that the Lord is a shield around
me. In other words, the Lord's protection completely surrounds
him. There is nothing half-hearted about this protection. It is complete.
When
others come against us with words, with unkindness, or with harmful
intentions, do we know the security that comes from experiencing the
Lord standing between us and them? That's what it is – a sense of
Him standing between us and them, and therefore we can be sure that
they cannot harm us. That knowledge means that we can therefore stand
there without fear, stand there in the grace of God, knowing that
we are God's children, loved and protected. This means we can smile
at our enemies. This means we can pray for our enemies (Mt 5:44).
As we stand there, confronted by our enemies, we can know peace and
security, because He is there and He surrounds us with His protection.
But
there is more in this verse. Sometimes when others seem to be against
us, it has the effect of wearing us down. We feel we are in a place
of blackness, a place of isolation and loneliness. So what does David
go on to say? “You bestow glory on me”.
The light of God's presence seems to shine
in our darkness and two things follow. First, we know that we are
not alone; He is here. Second, the darkness, the heaviness,
falls away as His light shines and suddenly we are no longer cast
down. Suddenly we find we are walking with our head held high. As
David said, the Lord came to lift
up my head.
Yes,
this is what this psalm tells us: our God is not just the all-powerful,
all-mighty, all-knowing God ‘out there', but He is personal, here
for me. I can experience His presence, here and now. I can know security
because He is here and now, to guard me and protect me, to stand between
me and those who are against me.
Can
we learn to have that sense, that God IS here with us and that He
is here FOR us, to love us (for He is love – 1 Jn 4:8), and to protect
us, as He stands all-powerfully between us and the people or things
that would seek to harm us? He is there to ensure that we are not
harmed by them, and He wants us to learn to know Him, know His presence,
know His power, know His protection, and in ‘knowing' we shall be
changed.
Response?
Pause up briefly and thank the Lord that He is your shield. Declare
the truth that He stands between you and those things or people who
would seek to bring you down. You are free and secure!