“He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings
you
will find refuge. . . . You will not fear the terror of
night, nor the
arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in
the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday” Psalm 91:4-6.
Oh, but I did fear the terror of night.
It was wartime in Holland, and our family was hiding someone
the
Germans were hunting – a Dutch police officer who secretly
had been
in charge of Allied weapon drops. A knocking on the windows
in the dead
of night would stop my heart. But terror is not limited to
the night.
The day came when Germans went from house to house.
We watched them come, my hero and I. A boy of ten, I shook
with terror when I saw this commander in underground resistance pull his gun.
Suddenly we heard shouts and shots, and we saw the hired man
led away. They thought they had their man; no one searched our house that day.
But my heart still palpitates when I think of what could
have happened (and often did): my hero killed, Germans too, consequently Dad,
and the farm burned down to the ground.
Not fear the flying arrows, not fear the stalking
pestilence? For years those
biblical promises sounded empty to me. Not fear the evils of
a Holocaust, starvation,
epidemics, accidents that can take the life of an only
child, an incurable
cancer diagnosis, a future with Alzheimer’s?
God couldn’t be serious, I thought.
For we all know, don’t we, that there’s no horror from which
we are exempt?
But there is.
I had not understood what God was really saying.
I had not understood how Psalm 118 could confidently
exclaim: “The Lord is with
me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
I knew and know they can do unspeakably horrible things.
They can take young women and rape them in the name of their
god.
They can unleash Sarin, the invisible poison that makes one
choke to death within minutes.
They can brutalize; they can maim; they can burn; they can
hang; they can
starve; they can destroy everything that was ever held dear
in a human heart.
Refuge
So what had I not understood?
God did not say we would never go through valleys of death.
He did not say that we wouldn’t have enemies who would be
out to kill us, that we
would not suffer fires and droughts and floods and
pestilence and bullets
and strokes and heart attacks and cancer and dementia.
He did say that he would always be with us.
And I began to understand that the promise refers to who God
is and not to who I am – vulnerable and afraid.
He knows I am, and that’s why he keeps telling me who he is:
one whom I
can cling to like a scared child clings to his daddy when
disaster strikes.
Like David clung when he was afraid: “The Lord is with me. .
. . When I am afraid,
I will trust in you . . . in you my soul takes refuge.”
Then Matthew enlarges my understanding when he reminds me of
the words
of our Lord to his disciples, and to all of us: “Don’t be
afraid of those who want
to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul.”
And I say, Yes, Lord, let me remember that the God who made
me, the God who loves me, is the God who saves me. He is the Lord who places
his right hand on me and says: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.
I am the Living One.”
That’s who God is.
But he knows I am one of those with little faith who will
still be afraid.
Then I will cling to his promise: “I am with you.”
Yes, he will be with me, as he was with Joseph, David,
Stephen, Paul, Bonhoeffer,
Corrie ten Boom and with all who have faith that no evil can
touch
the soul that is covered with his feathers, that is
sheltered under his wings.
And that surely will dissolve my fear – and yours.
