Psalm 91: Dwells

Has there been a passage of Scripture quoted more than Psalm 91 during the COVID pandemic? Everywhere you turn people have been quoting it, reading it, singing it, praying it, hoping for its promise of protection to be true. “You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.” In a season defined by uncertainty we have longed for a way to rise above, hide from, or beat back fear. Many have hoped to find that way in Psalm 91. As I read it today, I must ask, is it a promise or a call? Is it what God will do or what we must do? Or is this psalm, yet again, another example of how relationship and covenant work, a call to action and a promised outcome? 

Did you know that the only time that Psalm 91 was quoted in the New Testament it was Satan who spoke it? In Matthew 4, in Satan’s second temptation of Jesus, he took Him to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Satan twisted the Scriptures, he tried to use God’s Word to tempt God’s Son to test God rather than to trust Him. Jesus resisted him, quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Jesus understood and demonstrated that the promises of Scripture do not provide us with protection when our lives are out of place. Are we promised protection from trouble or in it? Can we call on God’s promise if we have not submitted to His Word? 

The psalm begins with words that are familiar and loved by many of us, “He who dwells in the shelter (if you were raised with the King James Version as I was it is “secret place”) of the Most High shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” To truly grasp the impact of this psalm we must understand the first verse and to understand the first verse we must study the differences between the words “dwells” and “abide”. They sound the same and they are similar and yet, every promise of the psalm hinges on the slight difference between those words. 

“Dwells” is translated from the Hebrew “yashab” which literally means “to sit down”. “Abide” is translated from “luwn”, meaning “to stop (usually overnight); by implication, to stay permanently”. The first is an action we must perform, the second is a position that we are given. He who chooses to sit down with God will permanently live with God. If we will take the action God will provide the position. This reality is repeated throughout the New Testament. Jesus said, in John 15:4, “Abide in me, and I in you.” In John 14:15-17 Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” Jesus quoted the heart of Psalm 91, “Trust Me, obey Me, dwell with Me, sit down with Me and I will prepare a place, provide a position, I will shelter you.” Can you hear this same truth being expressed when the Holy Spirit spoke these words through James, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you”? 

We are not hidden by God, with God or in God until we have come to God. There are no promises of protection until we have yielded ourselves to His dominion, I cannot get from Him until I have given myself to Him. Here is the beauty, we are only in the position to choose God because He has desired us. God is not standing off, He is not waiting for us to want Him, He has and is doing all the work to come near to us and to bring us near to Him, all that He is asking, all that He requires is that we “sit down” with Him. Jesus said that no one comes to Him unless the Father leads them and then He later said that no one can come to the Father unless they come through Jesus. This means that God is constantly at work, making Himself known, pricking our hearts, unveiling our eyes. As has been said by many writers and preachers, we cannot know God apart from God. He has done all the work to make Himself known, to bring us to the precipice of redemption, but we must give the action of surrender, of submission, of dwelling in His shelter, of sitting down with God in His secret place. 

I want to take a moment with the notion of the “secret place”. As I mentioned, I grew up with the King James Version and the New King James Version, while I do believe that some modern translations have made advances in accuracy and literacy, there are a few phrases that the way I originally read them is how I will forever hear them. In Matthew 6, in the middle of “The Sermon on the Mount” Jesus began to teach on prayer. He first taught how not to pray. Do not pray like the hypocrites, but “When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place . . .” For many this passage is familiar, if so, please do not run past it, sit with it for a minute, hear not what Jesus says but what He reveals. The Father is waiting for us to sit with Him. How often do we call on God to come to us? We are not creating a secret place for God; He has invited us into His secret place with Him. We are not chasing Him; He is waiting for us. The question is not whether or not God will cover us with His wings but have we, are we sitting down with Him? 

We want all the promises, but those promises are connected to relationship. To connect Matthew 6 with Psalm 91, we are hidden under God’s wings when we go into our room, close the door, and join God in His secret place. But what are these promises of Psalm 91 really? The author says that God is his refuge, his fortress and the One in whom he trusts. He writes that God will deliver, will cover us with His wings (gentleness to us) and be a shield for us (strength for us). But here is where I think our interpretation has become murky. As I shared above, the psalmist writes, “You (he is writing to us) will not fear the terror by night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.” It does not say that we will not experience those things, but that we will not fear them, not that we will not be touched by them, but we will not faint because of them. The position God provides is not protection from but protection in, it is not that trouble will not come to us but that our place in His presence overcomes our fear when trouble comes. It reminds me of a verse I quote often, you “are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation” (I Peter 1:5). The picture is of being in God’s hands while trouble rages, nothing can get it and we have no reason to get out, trouble may come but I am convinced that I am held. 

It turns out that this is not a promise of protection but rather, a call to action so that we can be found in the right position. In all that is happening in your life, in your heart, in our world, have you sat down under God’s shelter? Which place gets more of your time and your attention, the secret place where God is or the place your trouble dwells? Is your heart, your mind and your life yielded to Jesus? The promise of Psalm 91 is not that there will be no trouble, but that if we will sit down with God, He will surround us. We must only remember that the One who surrounds us is far greater than everything that attempts to surround Him. If we will sit with Him, He will forever fight for us.