Psalm 91:9-10 If you make the Most High your dwelling – even the LORD, who is my refuge – then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.

I have liked this Psalm for a long time, becoming particularly aware of it when I learned a musical setting for the first three verses. However, I think it may have been even before that that I made a note by verse 10 in the Bible I was using for my devotions at the time: “Whatever it looks like, it isn’t disaster.” Sometimes we accuse God of not living up to His word, but that comes from our defining everything from our highly limited human perspective. The writer of Psalm 119 had it right when he said, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” (Psalm 119:71) As we need to keep reminding ourselves, God is good all the time. That’s not to say that everything that happens to us is His best; our own insensitivity to guidance, and even active disobedience, block many blessings and invite many undesirable consequences. However, as Jesus so famously told us in Matthew 6:33, if we make obedience to God our first priority, then everything we need, on every level and in every area, will be supplied to us. The problem comes in how we define our “needs.” If we are convinced that we need such and such but don’t have it, then we allow resentment to poison our hearts, and that is a crying shame. We need to say, “Lord, I would like to have such and such, but I choose to trust You. Thank You for Your grace toward me. Supply what You know I need, and help me walk in total obedience all the time, for Your glory.” That’s not always easy to do in honesty! However, if we choose to pray that way in faith when we are alone with the Lord (and not just to sound pious to other people) then God will answer beyond all that we could ask or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)

This is something I probably first heard many, many years ago, but it is something I still have room to grow in walking out. There are times when I want something intensely, particularly someone’s healing, deliverance, or salvation, but I don’t see it in my time frame. That can be hard! There are times when I really want something material myself. That’s a little easier to recognize as being of lower priority, but my flesh can get pretty noisy at times! I’ve lived long enough to know that temporal things are indeed just that: temporary and not worth getting tied in knots over. My challenge is to live out what I know!

Father, thank You for Your incredible, overwhelming grace toward me. Help me rest in that grace indeed, knowing that You will never allow anything in my life that You can’t use for my good, if I will release it to You. (Romans 8:28) Help me receive everything from Your hands with gratitude and obedience, so that You may be free to use me however You desire, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!