The Lord: Our Defender:

It is amazing to look at the book of Psalms and to see all the glorious ways that the Lord has to defend us and to care for us.  One day as I was doing my personal daily devotional, I read the verse of the day.  The verse of the day this past Monday was Psalm 68:5-6.  I found glory and comfort in the verses of Psalm 68:5-6, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.”   Because I found this verse has a lot of good truths, I thought I would take the time to break it down in its entirety.  

“God is a father to the fatherless.”  The Lord is often called our Father.  This isn’t necessarily like our fathers who are here on earth.  Our fathers here on earth make mistakes and are human.  There are many who don’t have the best relationship with Fathers, and there are many Fathers who have chosen not to be in their child’s lives.  That is not what this Father in heaven is like in the slightest.   However, he is like our Fathers here on earth in that Fathers are supposed to take care of us, and we can go to them with anything. There are times that we make mistakes and he has to give punishments, but he does this because he continually wants us to be better people. The second line is, “a defender of widows.”  It is really important that God wanted to highlight these two groups of people.  These are often groups that are forgotten about in this world, and this was especially true when the Bible was being written.  The Fatherless didn’t have a family name that they could look to, and the widows didn’t have a husband to help provide for them.  Granted, in the United States, this isn’t exactly how we look at the widows or the fatherless now, but these groups are still missing fundamental people to how we see the traditional family.  

“Is God in his Holy Dwelling,”   The Lord is not here on earth.  He is in such a higher place than those who are in the world.  He is above the world.  He is above the sins and the problems.  That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about the tragedies or the issues that are happening in the world, but it means that when we die and have followed Jesus throughout our lives, we are going to leave this world and be with the Lord.  This is even said in the Gospels in John 14:3, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”  The Lord has not forgotten about us as we are in tears, as we are stressed, and as we are in pain.  The Lord is going to help us as much as he can while we are on this earth, but then he will prepare a home for us.  The Lord will prepare a place for us to live and be filled with joy for eternity.  

One of my favorite parts about this verse is “he leads out the prisoners with singing.”   The Lord cares about our freedom and that we feel free.  The Lord cares about making sure we can feel secure and at peace in our relationship with the Lord.  We as people can get distracted by the sins of this world.  This could be gossip, bad habits, caring too much about other things above the Lord, etc.  The Lord doesn’t want us to stay in that place of living in sin.  He knows that oftentimes when we are constantly thinking about sin or when we have sin as a major part of our life, we are held captive.   He wants us to be free in the knowledge that we are made right with him, and we have the opportunity to live in his holy dwelling for eternity.   

I know that recently I have been struggling a lot more with how other people think of me, and that has really held me captive to my own thoughts.  I have found myself more and more concerned that I am being perceived correctly by everyone.  While it is nice to have others like you, and it is good to have friends and try to make good relationships, the goal in life should not be to have as many people as possible like you.  The only opinion that should matter is the approval of the Lord.  The Lord’s pleasure in your actions is what we should be seeking with our daily actions and thoughts.  

The last piece of these verses is, “but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.”  Even though the Lord is loving, he is also just.  If there are those who are not willing to follow the Lord’s laws, they are not going to be able to live eternally with the Lord in heaven.  I would say that this verse in it’s majority is filled with great joy and inspiration.  However, it does end with a warning.  A person can’t continually run away from the Lord.  They can’t continually live the way that they want to and never meet the Lord on this earth and live in the Holy Dwelling place.  Those who choose to live rebelliously will ultimately be punished.  That is why we as Christians must continually seek the Lord and help others to do the same.