2 Samuel 22:36 You make your saving help my shield;
    your help has made me great.

Different translations render this verse in a variety of ways, with varying impact to the reader. However, the point is that the omnipotent Creator cares incredibly about His seemingly insignificant creatures. That awareness blew David out of the water, and was a major key to why and how David accomplished all he did. No human individual is the center of the universe, but God cares about us as though we were. The latest version of the NIV, quoted above, is perhaps the most watered-down of all the translations I’ve seen of this verse, and that’s sad. Where the NIV says, “saving help,” other translations almost universally say, “salvation.” It’s like the very idea of salvation is fading! Salvation indeed means many different things to different people, but the Bible as a whole makes it clear that in the final analysis, it is eternity with our Creator. We can be “saved” in many different ways throughout our lives, all the way down to receiving an umbrella on a rainy day, but we must never forget the eternal salvation that far outweighs everything else. The other major thought in this verse was expressed in an earlier NIV edition as “You stoop down to make me great.” The Japanese here goes so far as to say, “Your humility made me great.” That brings to mind what Paul wrote of Jesus, in Philippians 2:5-11. We have no full grasp of how great a thing it was that the Creator took the form and weakness of one of His creatures, in order to take the penalty for our sins on Himself, thereby providing the ultimate salvation. The better we grasp this, the more total will be our own love and devotion to the One who loves us so much.

This awareness is, naturally enough, something that has grown in me over the years. I still can’t appreciate it fully, and I was far less able to appreciate it years ago. Like everyone else, I still have the tendency to treat salvation like an umbrella in the rain, and that’s a huge mistake. Sometimes I need to get rained on! I need to trust that God always knows exactly what I need, and I don’t. He very graciously tells me to ask, seek, and knock, (Matthew 7:7-8) but that is to teach me to focus on Him, because as Jesus said just before He said that, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:8) I am to pray earnestly, just as I have recently been praying for my brothers and sisters in Iran, but know that my God is greater than everything, and my mind simply can’t grasp it all. I am to trust Him enough that I can genuinely rest, relax, and rejoice in Him, just as He has told me to do, whatever is going on around me.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for all You’ve recently been allowing me to go through here, and for reminding me how ultimately insignificant it is. Help me do what You want me to do, for that is indeed significant, even if I don’t see that significance myself. May I be Your agent to draw many to Your eternal salvation, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!