Psalm 91 and a Gunshot

Security of the One Who Trusts in the Lord.

Psalm 91

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,

My God, in whom I trust!”

3 For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper

And from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with His pinions,

And under His wings you may seek refuge;

His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

5 You will not be afraid of the terror by night,

Or of the arrow that flies by day;

6 Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness,

Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.

7 A thousand may fall at your side

And ten thousand at your right hand,

But it shall not approach you.

8 You will only look on with your eyes

And see the recompense of the wicked.

9 For you have made the Lord, my refuge,

Even the Most High, your dwelling place.

10 No evil will befall you,

Nor will any plague come near your tent.

11 For He will give His angels charge concerning you,

To guard you in all your ways.

12 They will bear you up in their hands,

That you do not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread upon the lion and cobra,

The young lion and the serpent you will trample down.

14 “Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him;

I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name.

15 “He will call upon Me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble;

I will rescue him and honor him.

16 “With a long life I will satisfy him

And let him see My salvation.”

On April 22, 2017, on our way home from a concert in Dallas, the back window was shot out of our Ford Expedition while we were driving down the freeway. Two people were sitting in the front seat, my husband, Bruce, who was driving, and our friend Rick. I was sitting, directly behind my husband; my friend, Betty Hawkins; and my Mother-in-law, Eunice Zimmerman were also on the second row of seats. The third row was occupied by no one.

Rick shouted for us all to duck as the glass shattered and blew in on us. Instantly he exclaimed that it was a gunshot. Bruce stepped on the gas, making the old Ford go as fast as it could. We were getting out of there.  Did we think about stopping and calling the police? No! If they were still behind us, we weren’t hanging around!!  Gradually we sat up, (Bruce never ducked), and we reasoned among ourselves as to what had happened. Certainly, I thought out loud, “That couldn’t have been a gunshot. It must have been road debris. What else could it have been? Who would want to shoot at us? We hadn’t done anything to deserve road rage.”

But Rick wasn’t deterred. He was convinced we had been shot at. We drove home with Rick talking about this or that; he was the only one convinced it was a gunshot, although I think my Mother-in-law was not convinced it wasn’t. The cold air whipped in around us. Bruce drove as quickly as possible. It was a Saturday night after all. Sunday morning would come soon enough and he still had a sermon to preach, regardless of what happened.

When we reached Waxahachie, all cold and chilled to the bone, we began to drop off our riders. First, Betty Hawkins to her home.

 That’s when we noticed the notch in the steering wheel. After Betty closed her door to her home for the night and was safely inside, Rick got out and examined the car. Rick found the slug on the passenger floor, and Bruce found its metal jacket on the dash. It was a gunshot that we had heard! There was no need to tell Betty right away. Why have another person stay awake from shock?

Several things crossed our minds that night, with no answers. Bruce wondered out loud about the fact that if he had been killed, he wouldn’t have to face an upcoming cancer surgery. I wondered vaguely about the reference in Psalm 91 to the “arrow that flies by day” (in this case the bullet that flies by night). What to make of all this? It was a rather sleepless night for both of us.

When we took the bullet to the Dallas Police Station the next day, one thing we could all agree on, including the police, is that it was a miracle that no one was hurt. Perhaps there was someone in the third row, a guardian angel.

Whatever the case, it wasn’t our time to go.

The wonder about Psalm 91 resurfaced several weeks later when a young girl in our congregation came up to Pastor Bruce and quoted the entire Psalm for him!!  She was touched by our near-tragedy.  We were touched by her kindness and her ability to quote the whole Psalm for Bruce!

This Psalm has had a special place in my life for decades. My grandparents in Georgia had a practice of reading a Psalm together each day. On the morning of October 31, 1972 a drunk, armed intruder took their lives, after stealing some rather mundane items from them. Psalm 91 was apparently the last Psalm they had read together.            

I was only 12 at the time. It was hard to process it all. My parents did not encourage us to go to the funeral, so closure took a long time.

My freshman year in college was the first time I embarked on reading through the Bible. Perhaps it was at that time that I began to ponder Psalm 91. It remained an enigma to me, and troubled my fledgling understanding of God. Didn’t this psalm promise to protect those who trusted in the Lord? Both my grandparents were believers, and they had read this psalm together. Didn’t the psalm say “no evil will befall thee?”

            I began to study Psalm 91 to try to better understand what it is saying, and what it is not. There is not a clear consensus on who wrote it. Some say it could have been David or Solomon. Others say it was Moses. I, for one, vote for Moses. There are the familiar motifs found in Psalm 91 that are in the exodus: the eagle wings (Deut. 31:11), pestilence, and plague. Consider, too, that the Jews at that time could lay claim to seeing 10,000 falling at their “right hand,” v. 7, as Pharaoh’s chariots disappeared under the waters of the Red Sea.

 Also, the reference to God being our “dwelling place” in verse 9 echoes the opening of Psalm 90 which is attributed to Moses. In fact it is the opening line of Psalm 91 which sets the condition of the psalm: we need to dwell in the shelter of the Most High.

 The question that arises is if I do my part, and dwell, or abide, in the Lord, can I expect to be protected all the time? We were protected on April 22, but my grandparents were not protected on October 25. Were we living right, and they weren’t?

In exploring this question I am reminded that part of the Psalm, verses 11 and 12, was quoted to Christ during the 40 days in the desert, by none other than Satan himself, cf. Matt. 4:6.

Psalm 91:11 says “he will give his angels charge concerning you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone.” Dr. Ryrie in his footnote on Matt. 4:6 notes that Satan left out part of the verse by omitting “in all your ways.” As Jesus profoundly replied, we are not to “put the Lord our God to the test.” I should not knowingly sin and expect God to deliver me.

Satan is the great enemy of our souls, the one whose flaming arrows of doubt are intended to draw us off course, and out from under the protection of God. Satan’s attacks can be extinguished with the shield of faith (Ephesians 6:16). He was Christ’s enemy, and he is ours. He is like a “roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” Like Christ, we can pick up the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

It is interesting to note that immediately after verse 12, which Satan misused in an attempt to tempt Christ, it reads: “You will tread upon the lion and the cobra...the serpent you will trample down.” This is reminiscent of the promise of Genesis 3:15. Satan would inflict Christ with a wound to the heel, but Christ would crush the serpent’s head. He was defeated at the cross, but we still have to contend with him until our Lord returns and puts him in his place.

Perhaps Satan sought our harm when we were shot at on the highway. Perhaps he has intended harm for many of us that we don’t even know about, because God, in that instance, delivered us.

One commentary I read years ago said that this psalm is a messianic psalm. If that is the case then it is noteworthy that freedom from trouble is not only not guaranteed, but it was not guaranteed even to Messiah. In addition to Genesis 3 where we are told Satan would bruise his heel, we also know from Daniel 9 that “Messiah would be cut off.” Numerous Old Testament passages tell of the suffering of Messiah, most notably Isaiah 53. He was not exempt from suffering, and neither are we. Christ’s life is also an indication that suffering does not equate with wrongdoing.

We could hope that if we follow God, and abide in Him, we could be free from trouble. Jesus, however, told us that a disciple is not above his master. He had trouble and we should expect it, too. From the moment Jesus started his ministry he was in trouble with the powers that be. The gospel accounts reveal that there were many attempts on His life, but they couldn’t take Him, “because His hour had not yet come,” John 8:20.

Psalm 91:15 says “I will be with him in trouble.” This is an affirmation that we will have trouble! Being trouble free--no illness, no injury, no horrible circumstances--is not a given for followers of Christ. Trouble is an unavoidable, implied reality, the condition of humankind. “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” (Job 5:7)

Indeed, Jesus took on human flesh so he could “render powerless him who had the power of death...the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). Jesus did not avoid trouble; He came and suffered, to deliver us from it. On the night before His death, Jesus told his disciples “in this world you will l have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

 If I am to gain any peace from reading Psalm 91, it is not from the idea that I won’t have trouble, be shot at, see devastation, or illness; what brings peace in this psalm is that in God I am promised a refuge, a fortress, a bulwark, a shield. He is also like a protective mama bird, under whose wings I can take refuge.

Perhaps the promises in Psalm 91 are in its closing where it says,  “He will call upon Me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With a long life I will satisfy him and let him see My salvation.”

            As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life, I am guaranteed many great and precious promises, most notably, eternal life. Psalm 91:14 says, “I will set him securely on high, because he has known my name.” Although the psalmist might have used this terminology of something other than eternal life, it reminds me, nonetheless, of the fact that all those who believe in Jesus are guaranteed to be with Him forever, on into eternity.

            In John 14:1-3 Jesus affirms that believers will be with Him forever when He says: “If I go prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

             Where Psalm 91 says “I will be with him in trouble” I am also reminded that as a believer, I can count on His promise when He says, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,” Hebrews 13:6.

And when the psalmist writes “with a long life I will satisfy him” I am reminded that whether I live or die, God “has my back.” John 11:25 is His promise to me that “he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”

So if the shooter on the highway had hit one or two of us, as believers, we could say that we were still delivered from evil. Jesus would have taken us to be with Him. He left us here, not because we are more righteous, but because He’s not finished with us yet.

I can trust Him, good times, or bad, that He “is with me”: He is “my refuge and my fortress, My God in whom I trust” (Psalm 91:2).

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