"Dear Lord, please keep us safe and secure."
I would safe that most of our prayers take form as variations of the above. Whether it is during travel, financial stability, or healing an injury or illness, we as humans like to be safe and secure. Christians especially are hooked on the comfort thing...what good is believing and obeying the Almighty if He cannot even keep you safe? I pray, You protect.
I know that I spent most of my life offering up similar requests. It is a normal thing to like security. But what if while it is normal, it is not what is needed?
I have been on mission trips to Haiti twice in the last two years to work with an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Haiti is a very unstable and dangerous place and so I prayed for God to protect me...but what if I was praying counter to what God wanted? What if "safe" is not the state that God wanted me in in order to do His ministry? If I really wanted to be safe and secure, I should have stayed in Nebraska. If I really wanted to be comfortable, I would not be in most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere. But I was in Haiti, a dangerous place...it is good to ask for protection, right?
My father helped lead these mission trips to Haiti for about seven trips a year of three years and he put it like this: God loves us and will always do what is best for us...but what is best for us is what is best for Him and what is best for Him may not include security, stability, or safety.
Jeremiah 29:11 is an oft quoted verse: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; to give you hope and a future.'"
This is a very comforting and encouraging verse until you look at it from a none materialistic perspective.
What is not the greatest prosperity that man can experience is seeing God's face and hearing "Well done, good and faithful servant."? Do you know when you will hear that? When you are dead. Being dead is not really "safe" in the world's eye.
What can harm us when we are aliens to this world? What can be taken from us when our possessions and bodies are on loan? We will be given new bodies when...we hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
What hope is there outside of God? Doing anything BESIDES what God intends is hopeless...there is only futility.
What if your future is not a cruise to retirement on a Florida golf course, but the golden gates of heaven and...hearing, "Well done, good and faithful servant."?
I do not enjoy pain and I would not intentionally wish it upon someone else but...we are not in control. We are serving the MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE...the ONE and TRUE GOD who has determined us worthy of His UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and has called us FAMILY...what is a little pain in comparison to pleasing Him? What is discomfort when home is waiting? What is life but an opportunity to say, "Yes Lord"?
But I warn you...this is a dangerous prayer. When you stop praying "Keep me safe" and start saying "Thy Will be done"...watch out. When your earthly "safety" no longer becomes a priority to the places that God is going to take you so that you can do wonders...you will be safe in His arms. When matters of this world no longer matter, He will stretch you and pull you and make you do things that just plain hurt. HE WILL ANSWER THAT PRAYER. When you ask, "Put me where you need me."...He will. So be careful what you pray because God is listening. If you want to be stay "safe", you will probably will...and that might be all you do.
So think hard what you want to ask Him for.....
your safety? or His glory?
