Presence Over Prevention

I remember finding strange comfort and radical beauty in the way the Psalms talk about God… He is our shield (), our refuge (), our fortress (), our shade (). The Psalms are filled with this kind of language about God.

My issue was that if God could destroy an arrow, prevent it from launching, destroy the one shooting it, or at least change that person’s mind… why simply be a shield?

After all, He did destroy the Egyptian army that was pursuing the Hebrew people in the Exodus, so why be my refuge when He can wipe out what I need hiding from?

Of course, these questions aren’t new… They are the same old questions: “Why not destroy the serpent in Genesis 3?” “Why not prevent all of this from happening?”

In this, however, I found myself coming to terms with something the Scriptures return to again and again:

God promises His presence without promising to prevent every trouble.

Now, that doesn’t answer every question about what He allows, but it does challenge my preference for a life without trouble with His promise of His presence in all things. And it’s in that discrepancy that I am learning to find peace in who God actually is, instead of remaining frustrated with a God of my own making.

Think about it… shields are held close, refuges are hiding places, and fortresses are places we enter. These are all promises of protection, but they are also a picture of God’s nearness to us.

I had been imagining protection as something God provides from a distance. But the image of a shield is not just a picture of protection, it is also a picture of His nearness.

The hiding place, the fortress, all of it is about Him drawing near to us or, as Jesus invites us in , remaining in Him. He protects us up close, because His nearness to us is His goodness to us. This is His priority.

The image of shade was the most helpful to me because the sun is not an enemy that acts against me. In fact, the sun is a very real part of the world that gives us light, warmth, and life. And yet, the same sun that sustains us can threaten our comfort and even our survival. We need its warmth, but we also need relief from its heat.

This is the sort of real-life complexity that the Bible doesn’t hide. Not everything that overwhelms us is an enemy to destroy. Something can be good, and we can still need shelter from it. The psalmist says, “The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade” (Psalm 121:5, NLT).

If prevention were His only goal, He could stop the arrow from ever being released, keep the storm from ever forming, and lead us around every valley. But even when God does not prevent what I fear, He has not withheld himself. His goodness is not only in what He keeps us from, it is in how He gives himself to us in the middle of real life.

The psalmist walks through the valley of the shadow of death and says, “thou art with me” (). God is our refuge and strength, “a very present help in trouble” ().

In the valley and in trouble… God is there.

These Psalms weren’t just doing theology. They were the prayers of people whose misfortunes and calamities became a call for God’s will to be done… for Him to draw near, as He did in Genesis 3 after the humans first found themselves in trouble.

This realization did more than help me live with a theological tension. It affirmed that God is, both now and forever, the best place for me to run to in times of trouble and in times of peace.

Pain, darkness, and evil are realities we find ourselves in. His grace, lovingkindness, and mercy meet us in those realities. Our pain is real… and so is His presence.

This is the revelation of God among us. Emmanuel. God with us.

It is our shared hope that one day God will wipe away every tear and bring our troubles to an end (). But even when there are no more tears to wipe, arrows to defend against, or enemies to escape, His presence will still be His priority.

This is the good news… that even now, today, before that day, God is with us. He is consistent in times of peace and in times of trouble. His presence is not just a solution; it is what we were made for.

May you find His strength in all He prevents. In all else, may you find joy in His presence.