Stepping Up: Week 2 - Day 4

Day 4 - If the Lord Had Not

Psalm 124
1 If the Lord had not been on our side-
let Israel now say-
2 if the Lord had not been on our side
when people rose up against us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
because of their burning anger against us.
4 The waters would have engulfed us;
a torrent would have overwhelmed us.
5 Yes, the raging waters of their fury
would have overwhelmed our very lives.
6 Blessed be the Lord,
who did not let their teeth tear us apart!
7 We escaped like a bird from a hunter's trap.
The trap is broken, and we are free!
8 Our help is from the Lord,
who made the heavens and the earth.

One of the reasons why I love in-depth Bible studies like this is that the author - in this case - Beth Moore, makes us stop and notice things that we might otherwise pass right over.  Today it is metaphors...

v.3 we are swallowed alive
v.4-5 the raging waters overwhelm us
v. 6 teeth that rip us apart.

Do you ever feel that you are being swallowed alive, drowning, or being ripped apart?  Now imagine how much worse it can be if God is not protecting us.  Yes we face trials, and may even feel like these metaphors describe, but through all of it God is with us.  We feel torment because our battle is with Satan.

I love how this lesson really helps us to understand why Satan attacks us.  He truly hates us!  He cannot attack God, so he attacks us.  He lost his place in heaven as an anointed cherub and now through Christ we have gained a place in heaven.  And so his attacks come at us in any way possible, he even "enlists human help in his scheme against us".

We are continually attacked, all those feelings of being swallowed alive, drowning, and being ripped apart come from being attacked.  But if we can be fully confident that when we are attacked, God is attacked and He takes notice.  He protects us from any attack that we cannot handle. In knowing this "our times of turmoil will be considerably more bearable".

Psalm 124 shows us that those times of turmoil would not be bearable if God was not protecting us.  Christ has delivered us from unbearable turmoil!