On Life and Death: The only place that’s safe

I heard of the deaths just moments after protesting for life.

Strangely enough, this post was already scheduled for today. All week I’d sensed that today we’d need a word to remind us of the only place that’s safe.

All week I’d been chewing on this idea of safety.

I was also considering joining Forty Days for Life, the peaceful prayer protest outside Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the nation. We have a brand new PP clinic near our home, and I’d wanted to go and join the vigil with the kids, but wasn’t sure if it was safe for them. But yesterday, I kept sensing God nudging me: Go. I checked with Jeff, he emphatically agreed, and we met there, along with another dear friend and her three littles. The eight of us gathered there on the sidewalk, the kids snacking on sandwiches and playing, while we three adults stood and interceded for children unborn, for moms in need, for the broken, the lost.

It was only an hour. It was nothing heroic, but it opened my eyes and hearts to so much more of the brokenness in and around us. It forced my gaze outside the narrowness of my four walls, and encouraged my heart that we can make a difference, even when we have so little to offer. Afterwards, I thanked God for keeping us safe, and decided to treat the kids to a donut on the way home.

As we walked inside the donut shop, the CNN Breaking News blared on the TV:

SHOOTING: 13 DEAD, 20 INJURED.

Oh, Father. I turned the kids eyes the other way and began silently praying for the scene. My mind spun: How odd to be doling out sprinkled donuts to my kids while other moms mere miles away were receiving news of their own children’s deaths, while other moms were considering ending their unborn children’s lives.

I thought of this again: Where is safe? 

I had just re-read this portion of Jeremiah 26 and it reminded me of the only place that’s safe:

Jeremiah is prophesying to King Jehoiakim about the impending disaster coming upon them if they do not repent and turn from their evil deeds.  His words aren’t popular, as you can imagine, so

“when he finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, ‘You shall die!’ (v.8)

“Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, ‘This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city.” (v.11)

Is Jeremiah safe? How does he respond? First he exhorts them to mend their ways and obey the voice of the Lord, and then he says,

“But as for me, behold I am in your hands. Do with me as seems good and right to you … for in truth the LORD sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.” (v.14-15)

I am in your hands.

How could Jeremiah say that? How could he entrust himself into the hands of an angry mob of people who most certainly intended to kill him?

He knew whose hands he really was in. 

Jeremiah could entrust himself to their hands because he’d first entrusted himself to God’s hands. 

Perhaps he knew the song of David by heart,

“In God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me?”

Jeremiah was safe because his heart was free of fear. He was then spared from death. But you know what the very next story holds? Another prophet, Uriah, who had spoken the same sort of words. His story is told,

There was another man who prophesied … Uriah … He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah. And when King Jehoiakim, with all his warriors and all the officials, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah heard of it, he was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt. Then … they took Uriah from Egypt and brought him down to King Jehoiakim, who struck him down with the sword and dumped his dead body into a burial place of the common people.” (vv.20-23)

Jeremiah knew whose hands he was in so he entrusted himself to the people and was spared.  Uriah, who spoke the same message, was “afraid and fled and escaped,” and yet was put to death. 

Where are we truly safe?

Yesterday we were reminded that this world is not safe.

The only place we’re truly safe is the place of refusing fear, of wholeheartedly trusting God.

Then His peace rules our hearts and gives us the courage to enter dark places with the light of His love, and refuse to cower in fear.

May we fully ENTRUST our lives to His good care, and actively intercede for those around us, with the faith and courage that only He can bring.

{In life or in death, in God we trust and we are not afraid.  Thank you for reading.}

*Go HERE to find a peaceful prayer protest at a Planned Parenthood clinic near you.