"I will rescue those who love me..." Devotion by Sarah Molitor
Written by Sarah Molitor of @modernfarmhousefamily, author of Well Said*.
Psalm 91:14 “The Lord says, ‘I will rescue those who love me, I will protect those who trust in my name.” (NLT)
‘I don’t want to be rescued…’ That’s how I felt five years into marriage. As much as I knew I wanted to change the way I spoke to my husband degradingly, I figured I could do the changing myself…Until I realized I couldn’t. It wasn’t exactly going as I hoped. So, when that option dead-ended, I figured I would give God a shot at doing the rescuing. He might know a thing or two about that, given His history. Not so shockingly, He came through.
And He continues to come through ever since.
About 3 years ago my sister-in-law’s heart stopped a few hours after giving birth. No explanation. No warning. No answers. She needed to be rescued. Yet thousands of miles away across an ocean, what could I possibly do? So, I asked God to do the rescuing. We asked and prayed and pleaded and trusted. Three months later, she walked out those hospital doors with answers and healing.
And He continues to come through ever since.
Then there was when our sixth son was sick. Night after night, day after day, he got no relief and struggled to breathe. We did everything we could to help. Everything we could think of, we tried. He needed to be rescued. Yet no medicine, no oil, nothing we tried seemed to make a difference. So, in the depths of the night, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down my face, I once again asked God for rescue. I knew He could because He had proven Himself faithful—not that I needed proof. Then in the dark of that room, peace covered us like a blanket as we rocked.
And He continues to come through ever since.
Faithful. Good. Steady. Rescuer. Protector.
One of the verses I repeated out loud through tears when my son was sick was Psalm 91:14. The funny part about it is that I memorized it by happenstance. I was helping my boys memorize it for a challenge they were given by my parents. So, for two months, each day we would practice a verse or two and slowly put them together. Naturally, I memorized it as well, not thinking much of it.
Until those nights came. The nights when he was so sick, and I was so exhausted that I didn’t know what else to do. When I had nothing else to pray and nowhere else to turn, I knew I needed to turn upward. The words that came off my lips were those of Psalm 91:14, “The Lord says, ‘I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name.”
I’m not saying we will always get the answers we want or think we need, but the good news is He is the answer. To whatever question you have, whatever prayer you prayed, whatever tears you cried, He answers. In His good timing, which often doesn’t make sense to us, He answers. In His good ways, which sometimes don’t look so good from our perspective, He answers. God is in the unique business of rescuing and protecting, but there is a second half to that verse that is also important:
“...I will rescue those who love me.”
“...I will protect those who trust in my name.”
You mean we must do something, too? It seems only fair when you are in a relationship with someone that each side puts forth some effort. So, it also seems right that in our relationship with God, we do the same. Love Him. Trust Him. Know that even when things look bleak and don’t go the way we hoped, His way is going to be better than the paths we plotted and prayers we prayed for ourselves.
Our requests and prayers that we throw up to heaven can often be as loaded as a baked potato. Not sure why that came to mind—maybe I’m hungry. But the point is that what God asks of us...is minimal compared to what we ask of Him. Yet somehow, we feel like we have the harder end of the deal. Then when our situation fleshes out and we (with some hindsight) see how His hand was in it the whole time, we can quickly realize that God truly never leaves us. He just asks us to love and trust in His name.
So here I am. I’ve lived a little bit of life, and I can tell you from that little bit that it’s true. What God asks of us is minimal compared to what we ask of Him, and doing what He asks is worth whatever risk you might perceive.
To love God is to allow Him to be our rescuer.
To trust in His name is to know He will be our protector.
Once we release those two jobs from our grip, we find the freedom to truly live in Him knowing He will do it. Once you know that, it’s a lot easier to remember the next time that He is always there.
And because I’ve seen it, I know He’ll continue to come through!
