God's Wing

Psalm 57:1 “I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings, until the disaster has passed.” In 10th grade English class, a friend of mine named Brian Elkin once told me the motto of the navy seals. “Pain that doesn’t kill you, can only make you stronger.” Somehow that left a mark on me, and formed the foundation of how I viewed life and hardships. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that scripture conveys a similar view. We are to consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds. His power is made perfect in our weakness. As time goes on I find that most good ideas have some basis on the big guy upstairs. Yesterday, one of my friends pinged me after reading the devotional about being real and crying out to God. He’s been struggling with a medical situation and upon reading the verse he broke out into tears on the bus. Given what we’re dealing with I can certainly relate, and as I prayed for him I was very moved by sensing how much God loves him. Well today I hopped on the plane to Seoul, closed my eyes and flipped on my audio bible. I’ve heard that song 1,000 times… “hide me now… under your wing…” But as Psalm 57:1 came on somehow it struck me that never really thought about what that means. Then I opened my eyes, looked out the window and realized that I was sitting right next to the giant, majestic, wing of this powerful plane. I used to spend hours staring out and studying airplane wings as a kid. I especially loved it when I got the window seat closest to the wing, like I did today. I feel like God chose row 47 for me to remind me and any of us who are struggling that He does sometimes allow struggle. But He also provides us cover in the midst of that struggle. David wrote this Psalm hiding in a cave from King Saul who was out to murder him. But David took refuge in the shadow of God’s wing, until the disaster had passed. Lord we know as believers that the end is always good. And if it’s not good, then it’s not the end yet. We thank you for trials, but we thank you even more for your presence. We thank you for the covering and victory that is in your son. Amen.