Remember. Remember. Believers remember.
Open your eyes sleepy ones and let the word of Truth arouse your heart and embolden your spirit.
But let all who take refuge in You be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread Your protection over them, that those who love Your name may rejoice in You. For surely, O Lord, You bless the righteous; You surround them with Your favor as with a shield. Psalm 5:11-12
No matter where I am or what is happening, I am under God’s protection, and His favor surrounds me as with a shield. God’s favor is my shield.
We sing about God’s favor. We pray and ask Him for it. We hope to walk in it. But what I see here is that it already exists over those who love Him. He uses His favor as a shield about us. We already walk in it. I think maybe in our desire to walk humbly, we don’t notice all of the blessings that surround every step we take. Some of us, I believe, even are irritated with the favor we carry because it often looks different than what we would expect. But if we are to make it through this life successfully and live our lives to the absolute fullness God intended, then we must open our eyes to what His favor really looks like, and that it in fact does always exist over the righteous.
In this season of my family’s life favor looks like Chris having a job, even though that job has him living 8 hours away from us. See, some would see this as a failure or a testing, but God made it very clear that this was His favor over us.
Sometimes, God’s favor over us may not feel like favor. But that’s because it’s supernatural. And in the very essence of it being supernatural, that means there are parts of it that we may never understand. The One Who sees all things set up His favor as a shield over us. You see?! He’s protecting us from often unseen attacks. He’s also creating room for His spirit to rest on us and build character within us.
During this time of Chris living away, one thing is certain, God has been making good use of the space. Often, He wakes me in the middle of the night and speaks to me for hours, or leads me to the piano to worship Him, or to my Bible and paper for me to write. I wouldn’t be nearly as inclined to get out of bed in the middle of the night if Chris were here laying next to me. But since he’s gone, I know I’m not bothering anyone when I get up and meet with God. He’s also using Chris’ alone time to work in his heart. Just because we are married doesn’t mean we don’t need to grow in God alone. We most definitely do because every individual must have a personal relationship with God. So I see many of the events of my life now as that shield of favor surrounding me and us from things we may never see with our earthly eyes, and I’m grateful.
Prayer Moment: God, make each one of us more aware of your favor resting upon us. Help us to lay aside selfish ambition, jealousy and our own expectation so that we can more clearly see our portion of favor. Open our eyes. Wake us to Your presence all around us. Apart from You, what do we have? Draw us ever closer to Your ways. Thank You for covering us with Your favor as with a shield. In Jesus name, Amen.
In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation. Psalm 5:5
365 Days in the Presence 