Episode 1580: Safety in the Shadow of the Lord

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,580 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Carole Sluski: I'm Carol Sluski. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. The ability to find a path to healing after this grief is your key.

And one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my new friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: We just have to live like [00:01:00] we love, like God, we have to do it no matter what. We have to stop looking at everything as if it's conditional, and recognize that God's love is everlasting and unconditional. No matter what, welcome, and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling.

In the inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Psalm 91, 1 through six and 14 through [00:02:00] 16. I share how we live in the company of God's love, but often can't feel it. And I also share how God's love. Doesn't mean we never have trouble or pain, but does mean that God is there. Even when we do. Psalm 91 verses one through six and 14 through 16 says, you who live in the shelter of the most high, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty will say to the Lord.

My refuge and my fortress, my God, and whom I trust, for he will deliver you from the snare of the hunter and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his opinions and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a defense. You'll not fear the terror of the night or the arrow that flies by day, or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that waste at noon day.

Those who love me, I will deliver. I will protect those who know my name. When they [00:03:00] call to me, I will answer them. I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue them and honor them with long life. I will satisfy them and show them my salvation. We live surrounded by a love that is indescribable. However, I don't know about you, but.

I often fail to feel that it doesn't feel like it sometimes because I feel disconnected from that love. I feel like I'm wandering in the wilderness. I'm suffering through things. Bad things are going on, and I'm struggling to get through it. I dunno about you, but oftentimes when I think about.

Struggling in the wilderness. I think about pictures of those folks going through the jungle with the machete chopping down the branches and trying to get through it. But the wilderness in the Bible that [00:04:00] Jesus wandered through, that Moses wandered through isn't a wilderness of weeds and grass and undergrowth and darkness.

Instead, it's a desert. I live in Texas and I can relate to being out with the sun, beating down, pulling all of the strength from your bones, making you exhausted and hot and tired, exposed and vulnerable to the world and hear. Psalm 91 starts with living in shelter, abiding in shadow. And imagine when you're caught out in the sun and you have nowhere to hide what a relief and a blessing it was to have the Lord's shadow cast on you.

Think about the peace that would bring you to find a moment of respite, a moment of calm [00:05:00] in the shadow with the sun being blocked when that. Cloud comes across and finally blocks out the sun, and you feel that relief and you can stand a little straighter, breathe a little easier, and maybe open your eyes and begin to see that.

And that's what God's love is. It's a relief. It's a relief from the dry feeling of isolation, abandonment it. It's a relief from hearts that are parched from a lack of love. That they can sense or receive or give. Its acceptance of security and peace. That's what it means when we talk about my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.

And this Psalm talks about things that feel. Dangerous in a way. What are we trusting God for? It talks about [00:06:00] angels will bear you up so you won't dash your foot on a stone treading on lions and snakes. No scorge will come near your tent. All of these things seem dangerous and they're conditional too.

It's talking about the Lord will deliver and protect those who know their name. But then immediately I began to think, but what about those folks that don't know God's name yet? Maybe because they haven't been exposed to it, they haven't had the opportunity, they haven't had it explained to 'em in a way that makes sense.

Or what about those who have been taught that and should be called to love you and are still struggling to do it? I don't know about you, but I found myself in that camp time after time where I struggled temporarily. Or maybe even permanently to find and believe and trust in the love of God.

And even if we do know, [00:07:00] even if we're doing the best we can to love the best we can, what do we get? What's the blessing that comes to us? Is it a bubble suit that protects us from all harm? Is it a tireless guardian angel that jumps in front of us in traffic and pulls us back from a busy.

Curb and protects us from the sniffles and the colds and the diseases, or protects us from flying projectiles or accident or harm. Are we promised to be impervious to heart? That's clearly not the promise 'cause if it was, why do we hurt? And honestly, sometimes I hear that from people that the only reason you're hurting is because you don't trust in God enough.

You're not paying attention to God enough. You're not doing it right. You're not loving right. You're not treating right. You're not following the right rules. You're not doing it right. [00:08:00] You didn't know enough. You didn't act enough, you aren't enough. But the truth is, I hope that you know better. Our head at least sometimes understands that we know better in our head, but our deep down inside our guts our heart sometimes still feels abandoned, and we still say, why me?

Why do bad things happen to good people? We feel inadequate. We feel like it must be because I've disappointed God. It must be because my faith isn't strong enough. It must be because I did something. Wrong. God must have put conditions on my love and I failed to meet those conditions. But the truth is, God's love is constant, unconditional love.

Psalm 91 says, there's [00:09:00] nothing that can happen to us that takes it away. The last two verses, when they call to me, I will answer them. I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue them and honor them. God promises to answer when we call. Sometimes we don't hear the answer, maybe because we moved away and we're too far away from God at that moment to hear.

Maybe because we haven't learned the right way to listen or to understand. Maybe we've put hoops and conditions on God's love, but God didn't. We did, and God doesn't like to jump through hoops. But God will answer the second promise. This verse says, I will be with them in trouble. It doesn't say God will keep us from trouble, and I don't know about you, but most of the trouble I find myself in is my fault.

And God gives us the freedom to wander away, to make [00:10:00] mistakes we should celebrate. That even then, even in our stubbornness, even when we make bad choices, even when we try to set ourselves up to be God and judge others the way God judges, even when we do it all wrong, that doesn't stop God from being with us.

And I don't know about you, but the next part where it says the rescue, I will rescue them and honor them. It feels like that must be a get outta jail free card. God will rescue us. That means that God will pull us out of it when things go wrong, right? I dunno about you, but it doesn't seem to work that way because it also says God will honor us.

And that includes allowing us to make our own choices and then allowing us to live with the consequences, because [00:11:00] that's giving us honor. But we still can call upon God and God will be there and God will rescue us. God will show us salvation. We just have to live like. We love like God, we have to do it no matter what.

We have to stop looking at everything as if it's conditional, and recognize that God's love is everlasting and unconditional no matter what. Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and [00:12:00] find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship.

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