Promises and Perspective
Nov 1 2024 - Eric Buresh
I had the opportunity this last week to spend some time with a friend grieving a loss and the resulting suffering. My friend has a deep and rich faith in God’s sovereign hand, making it a sorrowful but simultaneously joyful conversation (2 Cor. 6:10). We read through Psalm 91 together, a song of divine protection and safety that has comforted the hearts of God’s people for centuries. Its promises are rich, powerful, and reassuring: that God is our refuge and fortress, that no harm will overtake us, that we will be delivered from the snare of the fowler, from deadly pestilence, from terror by night and the arrow that flies by day. But as we look around us in this world, indeed as my friend was facing in the immediate moment, we see that evil, sickness, and calamity are present realities. How then are we to understand the promises of Psalm 91 and many similar passages?
The answer and the comfort for believers lies in recognizing that the promises of this psalm are not bound by the limits of this temporary world but point us to the eternal reality of God's unshakeable kingdom. In this life, we will experience hardship and pain, but in Christ, we are eternally secure, always safe in the shadow of the Almighty. The protection Psalm 91 promises is not from earthly trouble, but from ultimate destruction—our souls are preserved, our future is secure, and nothing can ever separate us from the love of God.
The promises in this psalm are indeed breathtaking. But if we interpret these promises in terms of this temporal life, we will, at some point, be disillusioned. The world is full of suffering—godly people face sickness, tragedy, persecution, and death. We cannot deny the brokenness of this world. The promise of Psalm 91 is that, in a world filled with evil, God’s eternal protection surrounds us. He guards the most important and only lasting thing we have—our souls. In Christ, we have a refuge that no earthly disaster can destroy, a fortress that no enemy can breach.
Jesus spoke of this security when He said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). The worst that this world can do to us is to take our physical lives, but through Christ, our souls are safe forever in the presence of God. The promises of Psalm 91 are not negated by the reality of earthly suffering; rather, they point us to the ultimate victory we have in Christ, where no harm, no sickness, no disaster can ever separate us from God’s love. As Paul writes in Romans 8, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” The promises of Psalm 91 are fulfilled in the unbreakable bond we have with God through Christ.
As we live out this faith, we shift our focus from the temporal to the eternal. Yes, we pray for God’s protection in this life, and we trust Him with our daily needs. But our ultimate hope is not in avoiding every calamity on earth; it is in the unshakable kingdom that awaits us. We live with an eternal perspective, knowing that whatever happens in this life, our souls are safe in God’s hands.