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Psalm 91 Protection
by Donna L. Watkins

Have you ever read Psalm 91, or many others, and asked the question, "God, why isn’t this happening in my life?"  "Why are You not doing this for me?"  "Where are Your promises being fulfilled in my day to day living?"

I have loved the words and promises of Psalm 91.  In the Spring of 2000, when we had lightning strike under the eaves of our house and start a fire in the attic, blowing out the telephones at the same time, I ran around trying to grab things to take out of the house.  After two trips, I realized it was futile.  Randal was in the attic using a fire extinguisher to get the flames off the roof enough so he could run to a neighbor to call 911, hoping that the whole neighborhood hadn’t been wiped out of phone service.

Having had asthma for many years, I couldn’t even get to the top of the pull-down stairs to help without choking.  Being a "take charge" kind of person, I felt totally useless and after those two trips, I realized that this was a situation that was way beyond my power.  I thought of Psalm 91 but in the fear of the situation, I could not remember a line of it.

I went to the bookcase to take off the nearest Bible in the house and turned to Psalm 91, sat down on the floor and read it out loud in Faith.  Randal came in after running to several houses till he found a phone, and went back into the attic to use the fire extinguisher again which seemed to be bottomless.  The firemen came and did their thing and offered Randal a job.  They couldn’t go into the attic without their oxygen masks and Randal had been up there the whole time without anything at all.

The circumstances and events of that day created many incredible thoughts about how things turned out and what could have happened … but didn’t.  They had told us that normally that kind of a fire would be totally out of control in 15-20 minutes.  We had heard the crack like it had hit the house but had heard those sounds before with lightning hitting the trees in our woods, so even though Randal kept saying he smelled smoke, I kept saying I smelled nothing…..until 15 minutes later when it came through the vent nearby.

I ran for the fire extinguisher, which we happened to have brought home from the retail store, and Randal pulled down the stairs to the attic and took it up there.  The flames were to the roof and the distance from the floored area of the attic was too far for the range of the spray …. but it reached there anyway.

The most amazing thing?  The insurance company told us they had a method to "bomb" the attic to take out all of the smoke smell from everything stored up there.  It was a chemical and we did not feel good about it, so we took a couple of boxes down to see how bad it was.  

There was no smell of smoke!  I instantly thought of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego coming out of the fire with "no smell of fire on them."

Since then I have memorized Psalm 91 and kept it nearby on index cards and marked in my Bible, but time fades memories and there have been many times when I’ve read that and said, "Why isn’t this working for us now?  Life seems to be falling apart … where are You?"

God is where He always is.  Waiting to help when we’re ready to move His hand in Faith and Belief.  There’s often an "if you" clause in the promises and I think that’s where we really miss it.  We have our part of the sanctification contract, and we tend to not notice our part, while we complain that God is not keeping His Word.

If the Word isn’t working …. it’s because we haven’t punched in the access code.  Don’t let the devil whisper in your ear lies about our Heavenly Father.  Believe the Word and make His Truth happen in your life.  Find out what you’re not doing.  Even if somebody transfers a million dollars into your checking account, you are going to have to write a check to get it out.  Move forward!  Find out where you’re "dropping the ball" and get back in the winners’ circle.