Psalm 3

Psalms 3:3 (ESV)

[3] But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,

my glory, and the lifter of my head.

This verse has been put to modern music, but I wonder what we think it means. Because God is my shield, my glory, and the lifter of my head, does that mean that bad things won’t happen to me? Does that mean trouble can’t touch me? The context of this verse is the time when David fled from his own son, Absalom. He fled for his life and hid out as his son attempted a coup. Bad things were happening to him. People were saying that God had abandoned him, yet he trusted God.

The Psalm goes on in verse 5, “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.” David slept, but not in his own bed. He woke, but not in his own house. Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to those who follow Christ. A shield is not intended to protect you in your own home. It is not designed for the dinner table. It is intended to protect you in battle. In the fierce thick of war shields are used. If the LORD is a shield about me, that implies his protection in the face of opposition and attack.

I fear that today many American believers read these verses and expect that they promise peace and prosperity. We spiritualize them. God will protect me in spiritual battle. Which is true, but we fail to recognize that spiritual battle might be physical attacks by real people. I think of the believers in the Chin district of Myanmar who are being burned out and killed by Buddhist extremists. I think of believers who lived through the opposition toward the church by communist Russia, or those who are currently opposed by communist China. I think of believers butchered by Idi Amin in the 1970s. I think of my friend who has been lying in a hospital bed for months praying for the restoration of movement in his arms and legs, or my friends who recently and unexpectedly lost their mates. Has God abandoned them? No! God preserved them even if through pain or even death.

No matter what the world says, no matter what difficulties, opposition, or oppression we face, God does not abandon his people. Psalm 3 is not a promise of peace and prosperity. It is a promise of protection in the face of pain, opposition, and attack. We have no promise that God will preserve our way of life as we desire, but we have the unchanging promise that no matter what we face, or what we experience, God will preserve his people. Trust him!