Exercise Wisdom and Walk in Protection

For He will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.

Psalm 91:11–12

When it comes to the Lord’s protection, there are some who read Psalm 91:11–12 and see in these promises an invitation to live recklessly. But this scripture is not encouraging you to throw yourself in harm’s way. It is saying that as you go about the course of your daily life, “in all your ways” the Lord will protect you. The Hebrew word for “ways” in verse 11 shows this clearly—it is the word derek, which means path, road, or journey.

As you go about your daily path, there are times when the enemy may have put snares ahead of you that you are unaware of. But God will give His angels charge over you, to go ahead of you to protect you from those snares. It doesn’t mean that you should go and do something foolish and harmful to yourself to test God’s protection! Even as we trust the Lord for His divine protection, let’s exercise wisdom as well.

You may be familiar with Mark 16:18, which says, “If they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them.” Now, if someone challenges you to drink poison and you willfully drink it to show that it will not hurt you, that’s just being foolish. Psalm 91:11 is talking about the paths you take as part of your normal life. Drinking poison intentionally is certainly not part of your normal life. What Mark 16:18 is saying is that should you drink something harmful without realizing it in the course of your day, the Lord will protect you from being harmed!

I have a missionary friend who told me how someone had tried to poison him while he was in the mission field. In the end, the person became a believer in the Lord Jesus because he saw the missionary innocently drinking the entire glass of poison—and suffering no ill effects. That’s how Mark 16:18 applies!

And I hope you realize that God’s protection does not always have to come in the form of spectacular angelic interventions. I believe that every day, His protection over us is so supernaturally natural that many of us don’t even realize that we have been protected. Perhaps as you were stepping off the curb, you felt something hold or pull you back, and right then, a car sped past you. What do you think held or pulled you back? It may well have been an angel, not necessarily spectacularly, but supernaturally protecting you (Heb. 1:14)!

This devotional is adapted from the book The Prayer of Protection Devotional—Daily Strategies for Living Fearlessly in Dangerous Times.