God Will Protect Us

God Will Protect Us “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.” 2nd Timothy 1:12 Over the past twenty years I have done much research on the history of the Cherokee Indian tribes as my ancestors were Cherokee. An interesting custom was the rite of passage for a young man. His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a log the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the sun comes up in the morning. The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him, and could attack at any moment. The sounds of the wind blowing through the trees, and strange noises frighten him throughout the night, but he must remain blindfolded. He cannot cry out for help to anyone but once he survives the night, he is a Man. The irony of the story is that when the young boys survive the horror of the night that they find their father sitting on a log just across from theirs. He had been there the entire night, protecting his son from harm. This is the way that our heavenly father watches over us. We don’t always know and realize that He is sitting beside us when we are afraid, and don’t know what is going on around us, but He is there protecting us from harm. Many times our blindfolds keep us in the dark, as when we can’t see God in our lives we do not think about Him at all times, but He is there just the same. When we can’t see our protector sitting beside us and watching over us, our troubles can seem greater than they are, and our fear can sometimes overwhelm us. It is during these times of trouble and fear that we can take comfort in knowing that all we have to do is reach out to Him, and He will take our hand and comfort us and watch over us. My Daily Devotional Volume III April 25 Robert William Brock, Jr.