You are covered...

​          As I thought about what to write this week, I remembered a video I watched last week about a “hero dad.” Actually, I considered sharing on this same video last week but clearly God had another plan. 
         It caught my attention because it tells the story of a father who shielded his three young sons during gun fire at a local car dealer. It was his wife’s birthday and he had decided to buy her a new car. While there, a man on the street outside started firing shots at the dealership. The man and his sons were seated on a couch just behind the glass wall which separated them from the gunman who was walking by on the street outside. As he started firing, the man grabbed his sons and pulled them to the floor with him. One of the shots came through the back of the couch where they had been sitting. One of his sons could have been killed. One of the bullets hit his leg and would require surgery to be removed. After the ordeal, he calmly called his wife and asked her to come pick up their sons. She had no clue what had happened. 
         As I listened to this story, the thought of God as our hero daddy crossed my mind. I thought of Psalm 91 which speaks so clearly about God’s covering and protection over us. The first few verses state: “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in Him I will trust” (v 1-2). 
         Those young boys were so covered by their daddy that as soon as the gunfire began, his instincts kicked in and he immediately, as he put it, "went into fatherly mode." Danger was upon them and all he could think about was the safety of his sons. Guess what? God feels the same way about us. When danger comes, God kicks into protective mode and does what He knows to do to shield us. I know many times we may not even feel His covering and protection. We even sometimes wonder if He is even there. We may even feel alone as we go through. But think about it. That father did not stop that gunman from shooting at the car dealership. His first thought was to cover and protect not stop the shooting. Many times, when it seems as if God is not stepping in to stop the situation, the challenge, the trial, maybe He is more concerned about us understanding that in the midst of our trials He is there. Maybe He wants us to see His ability not just to take away the problem – which He can do – but to shield us and help us to survive it, to even thrive in the midst of it.
         We all want our problems to go away; we want the people and things that stress us out to disappear but sorry to say that may not always be God’s solution to our problem. In time, He may remove certain elements of the problem, but His greatest concern may be that we understand that when we go through, we will survive, we will make it, we will even prosper and thrive in the midst of it, because He is there covering, shielding, protecting.
         I also looked at the reality that God takes a lot of the “bullets” that should hit us but don’t. We may never know how many “bullets” meant for us that God has actually taken on our behalf. If we really think about it, we should be dead because some of those trials were just plain designed to kill us. But they didn’t succeed. The devil didn’t succeed because he is the one that is defeated NOT us. 
Isaiah 43:2-3 says: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.”
         We will go through, we can’t escape it. The darts will come our way, we can’t stop them. Isaiah 54:17 tells us that the weapon will be formed but, you know what? It won’t prosper against us. So, let’s not put our hope in our problems disappearing or never coming our way. That’s part of life, they will come. Let’s put our hope instead in our God, our hero-daddy, who takes more bullets for us than we can imagine, who shields us sometimes from things that we may never even know about. Our God sees what we can’t, He knows what we don’t and if He does not worry because He knows who He is, then why should we?
 
          If you are not under God’s protective covering, I invite you today to accept His Son Jesus into your life and secure His protection over you. As His son or daughter, just like that father in the story, He is obligated to shield, protect and take care of you.