One of my favorite songs of the Christian faith is called Sheltered in the Arms of God. When God began to take me down the difficult path of blindness, I would often sing the chorus to myself, “So let the storms rage high, let the dark clouds rise, they don’t worry me. For I’m sheltered safe within the arms of God. He walks with me, and naught of earth shall harm me. For I’m sheltered in the arms of God.” I cannot tell you how many times these lyrics have comforted me, especially the phrase, “naught of earth can harm me.”
As many times as I have sung these lyrics, it is not until recently that I have connected them to King David’s writing in Psalm 139:5, “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” The Psalmist must have had Exodus 14 in mind when he wrote these words. When Israel was trapped in front of the Red Sea, read carefully God’s protection over His people. “Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them” (Exodus 14:19). Can you see the protection of God in these scriptures?
Perhaps you’re reading this and you feel stuck in life. As God has taken me down the difficult path of blindness, there have been many days where I have felt blocked in, or as David wrote, hemmed in. It may be that you, too, feel pinned in. Sometimes it is as though we cannot go forward, but neither can we go backward. I think David’s Psalm gives us a completely different perspective.
I am coming to the place in my struggle of seeing God’s hemming me in as part of His great protection. Just as God protected Israel by standing between Pharaoh’s armies and the children of Israel, so God is protecting us from the plots of Satan, and just as the Lord stood before Israel, between them and their greatest obstacle, the Red Sea, so the Lord stands between us and our greatest obstacles, ready to work miracles. So what makes the difference in seasons of feeling pinned in? Notice the last phrase of Psalm 139:5, David says, “you lay your hand upon me.” Child of God, you are not alone. God sees where we are, and in the times of life that frighten us the most, God places His hand upon us. What could be more comforting than to realize we really are sheltered in the arms of God?
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