This week's promise: God protects his people

Secure as Mount Zion

Those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount Zion; they will not be defeated but will endure forever. Just as the mountains surround and protect Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds and protects his people, both now and forever.

It is wise to break off the contemplation of enemies and dangers by crying out to God. Prayer is a good interruption of a catalogue of perils.

True Security

What does it mean to trust the Lord? It means looking to him as the source of our security and putting our faith in the grace, love, power, and protection of God when the inevitable pressures of life come. It means knowing as the psalmist did that the mountains surround Jerusalem, God himself surrounds and shields his people. When we trust the Lord, we don't have to focus on the wicked and what they are doing or might do to us. We don't have to rehash our own woes. Even though there are problems the size of mountains facing us, we can cry out to the Lord who created the mountains and is able to move them. As we focus on him and his truth, he will encourage our hearts and help us to claim the great promise of verse 2: The Lord will surround and protect his people, now and forever.

LORD, I put my trust in you today. You are my security and protection, my shield, my fortress, and my hiding place, and I praise you. When enemies surround me and troubles multiply, help me to remember that you are ever faithful and that you surround and protect me, both now and forever.

Adapted from The One Year® Book of Praying through the Bible by Cheri Fuller, Tyndale House Publishers (2003), entry for June 7.

Digging Deeper: read the new release of The Gates of Zion by Bodie and Brock Thoene (Tyndale, 2006), the first of The Zion Chronicles novels based on events surrounding Israel's statehood in 1948.

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House