This World Is A Perfectly Safe Place For Me

Read: Proverbs 3:24

You can go to bed without fear; you will lie down and sleep soundly. (New Living Translation)

Earthquakes that are, pardon the pun, off the Richter scale; volcanic eruptions that disrupt international travel for days; uncontainable oil gushers 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean spewing millions of gallons of crude crud onto our shores; acts of terror that shut down the world’s commerce and put the earth’s inhabitants on a permanent edge; a global economy sinking deeper into crisis by the day—all while the politicians and economists and titans of wealth scratch their heads in bewilderment.

Reads like a page right out of John’s Revelation, doesn’t it?  Actually, that’s what we wake up to every morning in the newest news—attention-grabbing headlines that might as well read, “Good Morning, Sunshine! It Looks Like The World Will End Today!” With a steady diet of crisis du jour and a media that can’t stop itself from the “if it bleeds it leads” approach, it’s no wonder that more and more people are decreasingly hopeful and increasingly afraid.

Except for Christians!  We’re confident—or at least we should be—because we’re in better hands.  If you are worried about the condition of the world, stop!  You don’t have to be, since the last time I looked, Someone was in charge.  And if you are doing your best to walk uprightly and wisely before him, you’re going to be just fine.  You don’t need to be afraid of sudden disaster or the inevitable destruction coming upon the wicked, since the Lord himself is your security. (Proverbs 3:25-26, NLT) He is your defender and protector—24/7.

Here’s the deal: When you belong to God, this world is a perfectly safe place for you, no matter what is going on around you.  So you might as well go ahead and get a good night’s sleep tonight and let your Heavenly Father stay awake and worry for you, since he neither sleeps nor slumbers, according to Psalm 121:4.

In 1944, German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was later hanged by the Nazis, wrote in a letter from prison:

“Much that worries us beforehand can, quite unexpectedly,
have a happy and simple solution …
Things really are in a better hand than ours.”

Your Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept It:

Read all eight verses of Psalm 121 every eight hours for the next twenty-four. When you wake up, when you get off work, and when you go to bed, take a dose of this Psalm and see if it doesn’t calm your fears in the morning, lift your worries at work’s end, and cause you eyes to get heavy with sleep-inducing peace when you hit the pillow.