Psalm 91:9-16 “Because you have made the LORD your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling. For he will put his angels in charge of you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, so that you won’t dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and cobra. You will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot. “Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him. I will satisfy him with long life, and show him my salvation.”

Making the Lord your refuge means that you will be generally safer in this life, and certainly safer in the life to come! Take the book of Proverbs for instance. Proverbs gives us probabilities. If we listen to what it says, then we’ll live better lives because we stay out of a lot of trouble. That’s what following God does. Following God doesn’t mean that we’ll never have trouble; just that we’ll stay away from much of it! And we trust that God will also watch out for us because of our desire to serve Him. The absolute blessedness described here will happen in the new heavens and the new earth:

Isaiah 11:1-9 “A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit. The LORD’s Spirit will rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. His delight will be in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by the sight of his eyes, neither decide by the hearing of his ears; but he will judge the poor with righteousness, and decide with equity for the humble of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked. Righteousness will be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze. Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”

I would suggest that this passage engages in the rhetoric device of hyperbole: it exaggerates to make a point. The point being that following God is safer than not following God! Jesus even warns about the dangers of misunderstanding this passage:

Matthew 4:5-7 “Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you,” and, “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you don’t dash your foot against a stone.” ‘ Jesus said to him, ‘Again, it is written, “You shall not test the Lord, your God.” ’ ”

Putting ourselves in harm’s way simply because we think that God will keep us safe is not a correct reading of Scripture. In fact, we’re sometimes reminded that following God can bring trouble because of the hatred of the world around us.

John 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.”

One absolute spiritual truth that should comfort us from this passage is the fact that once we are God’s, we are His forever! He guards us and keeps us in the palm of His hand.

John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

For additional worship: On Eagle’s Wings (Michael Joncas)