One day last week, I set out to do some work outside.
“I’m going to get on the ladder and hope I don’t fall off,” I jokingly told Jenna.
“The best way not to fall off a ladder,” she replied, “Is not to get on it in the first place.”
She’s not wrong.
The same day, I accidently turned on the stove, enough to fill the room with gas. It was several minutes before I smelled it and even longer for me to believe it. How could there be gas? Nothing was cooking. It took several hours and a full-on exhaust fan before the smell dissipated.
I’ve had plenty of falls, cuts and burns. I choke (which is an aftereffect of my oral cancer surgeries). In the course of a day I can trip over nothing, bruise without noticing, and collect the smallest of scratches. There’s always something. But these are just minor annoyances.
The Psalmist addresses life’s very real, very deadly dangers (Psalm 91, Easy-to-read Version, selected verses):
9 You trust in the Lord for protection.
You have made God Most High your place of safety.
10 So nothing bad will happen to you.
No diseases will come near your home.
11 He will command his angels to protect you wherever you go.
12 Their hands will catch you
so that you will not hit your foot on a rock.
So does this mean that God has been standing between me and serious danger? That thought fills me with amazed gratitude.
But there is no guarantee that there will never be any trouble. When it inevitably comes, though, He promises that I won’t be alone:
When my followers call to me, I will answer them.
I will be with them when they are in trouble.
I will rescue them and honor them. Psalm 91:15 (ERV)
But in light of my personal collection of bumps and bruises and minor annoyances, it looks like the thing God protects me from the most is … ME!
