The Witness

 It would be nice if you knew God all of your life but that usually isn't the case. In my early childhood, or teen years, I had a lot of people who would invite me to church but no one ever said how to get to heaven or anything about the Christian life. In those days, there was the old saying that you never discussed religion or politics. I was sitting with a pastor who was of Jewish descent and he said that no one would speak to him about Christian things when they found out that he was Jewish. He said that his first real introduction to the things of the Gospel was by the Cecil B Demilles picture, “The Robe.” It seems that we would rather delegate the responsibility of speaking about Christ to a pastor or professor rather than trying to do it ourselves. I don't fault the people in my life that didn't speak about Christ because I haven't done much about speaking to others either, at least not like I should. Psalm 91:14-16 says, “ Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.”

         The Psalmist begins this Psalm with two descriptions of God, one being like a fortress and the other like a giant bird with wings capable of covering all believers. The ending of the Psalm tells us about the benefits of salvation and knowing God in a personal way. The average person on the street or several houses down from you will not be reading his or her Bible that much and will probably be buried with troubles to the point that they don't know what they will do. You could give them the little nudge when you tell them what God has done for you. There comes that point when we do indeed set our love upon God. We don't doubt His existence nor do we question His ways. After all, He is God and His ways are far above our own ways. We discover that God will deliver the believer from the afflictions of life even when we have no idea how He is going to accomplish it. We know it, because He said He would do it. The Psalmist says that God will be with us in the day of trouble and that He will be with us. Apparently, we really doubt that God will be with us in the day of trouble as we find many praying that God will be “with so and so” in their time of trouble. With me, God has worked it out in the end. It took a number of years to get to the salvation part but once that took place, the blessings just kept coming and coming beyond what I would ever believe possible. This leaves us with the fact that we should all be taking advantage of the opportunities that God gives us each and every day. God places us in situations where we can at least share what God has done for us and is doing with us today. When people ask you where you are from or what your “job” is or what you like to do, you can tell them and you can tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ Who made it all possible. Praise God that He is your fortress, that you are under His wings and that He is always with you in your own time of trouble.