protection | Dena Netherton: My Father's World, My Father's Words

Prayer is perhaps the most worshipful thing we do.

It says to God:

“I look to You because I am Your child.”
“I recognize that I am spiritually poor, unable to make a change in my heart, or the heart of another.”
“I recognize my human physical frailty.”
“You are the God who cares.”
“You are great and good.”
“You are all powerful, much more powerful than my enemies.”
“You have a plan that is eternal, Your thoughts are higher than my thoughts.
“I trust You.”
“I can approach You with my intercessions because of what Jesus did for me on the cross.”
“I love You.”

We can depend on our Heavenly Father for His …

Provision

Protection

Power

Plan

I love the Psalms. Many of them, written by King David, begin with a complaint or a plea for God’s help.

I love the Psalmist’s honesty. He does not couch his words with false piety. He states his problem, then calls on God to bring about justice.

I hope you read the following Psalm and reflect on it today. The key phrase for Psalm 43 is “put your hope in God.”

Psalm 43 (from the NIV Bible):

“Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men. You are God my stronghold. Have You rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, 0ppressed by the enemy?

Send forth Your light and Your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You dwell. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.

I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed with me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.”

If that’s not worship, I don’t know what is!

We were told Sprite and her siblings had been dumped by the side of a busy road. A good samaritan rounded up the 8-week-old puppies and brought them to the animal shelter.

My daughter and I had come to the Shelter to check out the puppies.

And there she was. A fluffy ball of black with bits of tan on her face and her paws. Absolutely adorable. The Shelter worker said she was a mix, but I could tell immediately that she was pure Australian Shepherd.

Sprite was the perfect companion for our other dog, Dudley.

She was the “yes man” to his frequent escape attempts. If Dudley escaped our yard, Sprite was sure to be with the errant Springer Spaniel.

Even though we had adopted Sprite for Kiri, she quickly became my dog. She followed me from room to room as I did chores, did laundry, made meals. And when I went into my office to write, she’d plop down right next to my desk.

When I took a break and sat on the couch to watch TV, Sprite would stand in front of me, as though guarding me from any nasty images or aggressive voices on the morning news.

At dinner, Sprite sat at the foot of my dining chair.

At night, Sprite crawled under our bed and stayed there until I got up in the morning.

One hot summer day, Kiri and I took both dogs to the lake. We swam out to a tiny island, about a hundred yards from the lake beach. Dudley, being a water dog, swam with us. Poor Sprite, though, was a herding dog. No encouragement could induce her to jump into the water. But she ran back and forth along the beach, always keeping an eye on us to make sure we were safe.

And when we swam back to the beach, Oh, how happy our fluffy dog was to be reunited.

Sprite is long gone, but I still miss her. She was the perfect illustration of the saying, “A dog is man’s best friend.”

I often think that our dog’s faithfulness is an illustration of how our heavenly Father is with us. Just like Sprite, He stays close, faithfully guarding and protecting. He loves us, and wants to have a close and intimate relationship. There is no place we could go where He would not be, also. How comforting!