Dear Missionary Lady,
Greetings in the name of God, our salvation. “Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation” (Psalm 62:1).
It is logical to wait on God and to look to Him for salvation. The second part of the verse reveals the reason: He is the source of our salvation. Obviously, God is the only possible source of eternal salvation – of the rescue of our soul from the consequences of sin.
Salvation in the context of this verse refers not specifically to the one-time soul salvation, but to the repeated struggles-of-life salvation. It is deliverance, aid, victory, even prosperity. The Hebrew word is sometimes translated health or welfare. This is divine deliverance from something that threatens our well-being. (David will go on to describe the men who are conspiring to defeat him and even kill him.) Davis’s hope is in God alone, because others can’t provide even this level of salvation. Why are others so ineffective and untrustworthy?
Sometimes people can’t deliver us because they have insufficient compassion. It’s nice when we have family and friends who help, but the reality is that sometimes people are not close enough to us feel the need or responsibility to grant more than minimal assistance. For the right person, they would sacrificially give, but they may not know us well enough to care sufficiently to do much.
God never lacks compassion. Every one of His children is very special to Him. He cares about them more than He cares about the lilies of the field or the tiniest of sparrows. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13). “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (I Peter 5:7).
Sometimes people can’t deliver us because they have insufficient time. This is sometimes the actual reason behind what seems to be lack of compassion. People have responsibilities to their own families. They have responsibilities at work and at church. They might care about lots of needs, but their time is finite, and they cannot possibly meet every need of which they are aware.
God never lacks time. God is not bound by time, but He does use it for His purposes. In fact, sometimes our complaint is that He is using too much time! Some of God’s best recipes are made in a slow cooker, and time is the special ingredient. God takes all the time with us that we need, but He is simultaneously able to watch over all of His children. He is always watchful. “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” (Isaiah 40:28).
Sometimes people can’t deliver us because they have insufficient wisdom. When they listen to our problems, they might even tell us, “I don’t know what to say.” They find themselves at a loss for how to counsel us. And as far as coming up with a solution to the problem itself, that is another thing entirely! Scenarios can be so complex and situations so sticky, that sometimes the best people can do is to declare, “There IS no good solution to this problem.”
God never lacks wisdom. Not only does He know all things, but He has known them even before we became aware that they needed to be known. Because He always has a plan, He knows what the end is. He knows the solution and the proper means to arrive at that solution. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33).
Sometimes people can’t deliver us because they have insufficient ability. They lack both power and resources. They might actually figure out what deliverance would look like, but they are powerless to change the cells in our bodies. They are unable to change the hearts of other individuals involved. They cannot raise the funds necessary to pay for their plan.
God never lacks ability. He has all power to everything that He chooses to do. Based on how often the Bible uses them as examples, the outstanding evidences of God’s power are the creation of the world and the resurrection from the dead. If God can do those things, there seems little doubt that He can do anything that He chooses to do in our individual lives. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh is us” (Ephesians 3:20). Furthermore, God never lacks the resources to work out His plan. “If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof” (Psalm 50:12).
“From him cometh my salvation.” Our salvation (deliverance) is always from God. He can use miracles if He so chooses, but often He uses means. Outsiders and those without spiritual perception might attribute the deliverance to the means, to the secondary causes. They evaluate that it was rest, nature, the weather, doctors, an unexpected financial windfall, influential politicians, the wisdom of a pastor, the kindness of friends, or some other source.
If we are understanding through spiritual filters and looking through spiritual lenses, however, we realize that each of these means of deliverance is actually the plan superintended and worked out by God. Not only does He divinely orchestrate, but ultimately each of those things comes from Him. God created our bodies, their interworking systems, and the laws that determine how they respond. God made nature and controls the weather. God gives doctors wisdom to understand His systems, and every medicine is made from what He created. God supplies finances through His limitless channels. God directs the heart of the kings. God is the source of wisdom, and He bestows it on men. Every spiritual gift that anyone exercises toward us was given to that person by God.
God’s deliverance can be grand and amazing. He caused an earthquake to get Paul and Silas out of jail. He calmed a life-threatening storm for the disciples. But we should not overlook God’s deliverance when it comes through the tiniest details. He created a gourd to grow up to shadow Jonah (and then a worm to continue His plan). God brought a coin-swallowing fish to Peter, and He supplied both a weapon and life-sustaining water for Samson out of the abandoned jawbone of a donkey. Whether the deliverance is large or small, miraculous or mundane, it always comes from God, our Salvation.
May our great God continue His work on your behalf, delivering you through means both small and great, as He does His good work in and through you.
Love in Christ,
Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
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