Sunday’s are a beautiful day of rest in our home. It feels in these moments like God is our help and shield. I am usually the first one up, mom style. When I was growing up it was my Dad, sitting at the kitchen table in the morning, preparing to face the day, my mom in the kitchen. Do you have a morning routine like that?

Now, I see the need to sit, before I face the kitchen.  I think my mom must have had a secret, hidden life I never saw and didn’t know about. Parents don’t share everything with their children, after all. 

As I sat still on Sunday morning, my son came down the stairs to ask the faithful question he knows I will answer the same every Sunday. “Mom, can I watch TV?” 

He knew the answer. He’s asked the question a thousand times and the answer is always the same on Sunday. My children are wonderfully persistent, a quality I admire in them.

I have answers prepared:

“How about you read a psalm with me.”

He let out a sigh and then said: 

“Can we read Psalm 115?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing why he chose that one. 

As we read it became clear. He had been memorizing this at school. 

Psalm 115 is powerful. It speaks of God’s love and faithfulness, but also of what idolatry produces in us and how God is our help and our shield. 

We started talking about how God is our help and shield and Grey said, “Ya, I thought God was like a shield.”

I felt something deep in me suddenly come alive.

I looked at him and with excitement said, “No, God is not like a shield, He IS a shield.” 

Then, I told him a story of how God has been a shield in my life. 

I asked him where he learned God is like a shield and he said, “I just thought about it.”

In that moment it became so clear to me how early our deceptions start. They seem innocent. We think a lie and believe it. But, God being like something vs. being who He says He is isn’t innocent. Do you see the difference?

When you believe God IS who He says He is, you walk with Him. You have the opportunity to know Him and be protected by Him.

Believing He is only like what He says He is makes Him seem less to you and you start to think He may not actually defend you. If He’s just like a shield, you start to think maybe the shield could defend you just as well, so why do you need God and does He really care anyway?

I know because I spent years thinking God wasn’t my defender. He was “like” so many things to me, but never who He said He was. I wasn’t letting Him introduce Himself. I was letting others introduce Him and I was interacting with Him according to how I felt He seemed.

It then becomes easier to blame God and send our anger His way. We place on God our beliefs that He is like the men and women in our lives who have hurt us instead of allowing Him to instruct us and believing Him. We take what we can see and craft an idol we call God that has no power in our lives.

The thing is: We become like our idols. And, if we’ve made a version of God one in our lives, we’ll become powerless too, because God is not an idol.

And, it seems innocent because at first we may not even know we’re doing it. We’re living in a lie we’re not aware is a lie. My son didn’t know the difference between God being like a shield and being a shield. 

For years I didn’t know what it looked like to let God show me who He was because I was telling Him who I thought He was based on what other people had said.

I was trying to be my own help and shield, even though I wanted to live for God. And, there are things no one else can tell you about your life … because they just don’t know.

Help and shield: whose help?

The difference between my help and God’s help is vast.

I have seen the goodness of the Lord in the middle of my pain. He used struggle to draw me. I have wrestled with much. There is so much I don’t understand, but I love watching God shield me. It’s something I cannot do. In fact, I’m not even like a shield.

My son wasn’t being deceitful. He was listening, obeying and learning. Satan hates that. So, why not whisper in his ear: “God is like a shield.” It’s subtle and changes everything. Plus, it sounds good, right? Satan does this with us too.

Psalm 115:11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord! He is their help and their shield!

I don’t know about you, but I need a lot of help. So much in fact that I rely on Jesus, my help and my shield, because I know no man has the ability to do what He alone can.

The bible is not just a tired, spiritual book filled with stories. It’s practical. If you’ve never seen it that way I’d encourage you to start reading it through a new lens.

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