A part of me still hasn't recovered from the shock.
A couple of Sundays ago I saw Jacques, my second son, trip and fall face-first unto the glass panel of a cupboard at my in-laws place.
The entire glass panel shattered around his face.
And he had barely a scratch. In fact, the biggest hurt he had came, not from the glass, but from accidentally biting his lip as he fell. Other than that he was totally fine. His eyes were fine, his face was OK, the only negative consequence was that the incident left him in a brief shock for about a minute. Then he continued playing with my elder boy again, as if nothing had happened.
Once again I am firmly reminded of the importance of divine protection.
Some of you know that during my university days, I went Psalm-crazy, spending at least an hour a day meditating on the Book of Psalms. And one of the psalms I memorized during that period was Psalm 91, the Protection Psalm.
I was speaking that Psalm over my life every day during that season. So a few years later when Singapore experienced the SARS Farce and Christians in Singapore began to understand the importance of this Psalm, I was already a couple of years ahead of the rest of the believers in Singapore.
To interject: I call the entire fiasco the SARS Farce because we have people panicking over flu-type problems (the same problems that people have been dying from EVERY year before that), but this time its different ONLY because its supposed to come from a different part of the world? Since when are we supposed to classify diseases SOLELY based on travel arrangements? Oh, puh-leaze!!!
Now that the SARS Farce is over, I don't hear people talk much about Psalm 91 these days. But doesn't mean it has lost its power. Or its importance.
I was chatting with one of my students recently. She was telling me about the strange things happening in her house, explainable noises in the middle of the night, nightmares and all that, ever since she started organizing a prayer meeting. And as she shared, I realized that my life has been quite devoid of all these weird things happening, despite my serious involvement in the Kingdom of God and serving his people.
And I suspect it's because I have been speaking Psalm 91 over my household everyday for the past couple of years.
When I was a younger Christian, I used to delight in having similar horror stories to share. It was as if I needed to have all these symptoms of spiritual warfare to validate my ministry, to show how damaging my ministry was to the kingdom of darkness and to show how faithful I am to God, doggedly serving him in spite of all the spiritual opposition that came my way.
Thanks, but no thanks. Especially ever since I had kids, I realized that having glam and exciting stories and looking spiritually important in the eyes of others is just not worth leaving my family members without spiritual protection. I started blessing my sons with God's protection everyday, and as I said, for the past couple of years I have been speaking Psalm 91 over myself and my household daily.
And after I see a glass panel shatter around my son's face but leave him untouched, the words "a thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you" (Psalm 91:7, NKJV) have truly come alive for me.
I know that some of you may come from a different theological background from mine, and if you are not from the Word-of-Faith movement you may not feel comfortable with reading Psalm 91 aloud over your life everyday. If that is the case, then may I suggest that you make it a point to pray through the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) daily? This prayer also teaches us to seek God for his protection daily "And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one." (vs 13, NIV)
Finally, I want to say that God has truly been so good to me. If I want to murmur and complain I can come up with a whole list of things I'd like God to fix RIGHT NOW, but after I see his obvious protection of my son I think those things can wait. I'm gonna praise his holy name even more, because of his goodness to my son. Wanna join me?
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