Safety Second

“Lord keep us safe.”

The habitual prayer from believers and unbelievers alike. From road trips to battle lines, kids going off to school to those taking a knee before athletic events, we pray for safety. It can be a catch phrase we instinctively say and whole-heartedly mean.

Contemplating “what if” unleash waves of fear, anxiety, and worry. Our response is often to double down on pleading with God to keep ourselves and those we love free from harm.

Is it wrong to pray for safety? No, after all we are instructed to cast our cares upon Him for He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). Neither is it wrong to be deeply concerned about safety when navigating dangerous plans or dealing with the fallen nature of our world. So why this article?

Simply put, safety is not our top priority. 

Let this sink in, there is not a single prayer for safety in the New Testament. Not once does anyone or any group huddle together pleading with God to keep John the Baptist, Pricilla, Peter, Lydia, or Paul “safe.” Nothing. There are prayers for deliverance from evil, but nothing that equates to today’s avoidance of unpleasantness.

No doubt their hearts were flooded with fear, terror, grief, and worry over their circumstances. They felt the real-time implications of living for Christ in a world filled with unrestrained hatred toward God. They were truly sheep in the midst of wolves. If anyone had reason to make that request prominent in prayer, it was the persecuted church.

Yet we do not find them praying for God to evacuate them to a place of comfort, ease, and absent from hardship.

The only time I find Paul using the word is in 2 Timothy 4:18 and the context is Jesus bringing him safely through death’s door into Heaven. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

There are a few such prayer for God’s protection in the Old Testament {Ex: Psalm 4:8; Psalm 32:7; Psalm 78:53; Isaiah 38:14}. Yet very seldom do we see it prioritized even under extreme persecution. Think of all we know of Daniel, Job, Esther, Ruth, Jeremiah, David and many others. With all the soul-crushing emotions they carried, the overwhelming majority of their prayers are focused on something other than personal well-being.

What do we find believers praying for?

• Open doors for the gospel – Colossians 4:2-4
• Courage – Ephesians 6:19-20
• Alert, sober-minded – 1 Peter 4:7
• Love that is discerning – Philippians 1:9
• Steadfastness – 2 Thessalonians 3:3
• Filled with endurance, faith, and love – Ephesians 3:16-19
• Holiness – 1 Thessalonians 3:13
• Wisdom – James 1:5
• Salvation – Romans 10:1
• Protection from evil – Matthew 6:14
• Equipped for service – Hebrews 13:20–21
• Righteousness – 1 Peter 3:10
• Delivered from persecution in order to proclaim the gospel – Romans 15:31
• Worthy walk, Godly desires, Powerful faith – 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 

The argument from the negative doesn’t necessarily create a mandate. Yet the overwhelming majority of prayer modeled in the Scripture are concerned with glorifying God far more than soothing ourselves. In following this thread, we find how to petition God for the character needed to endure persecution. Certainly peace is desirable, but the peace God promises is the realty of Christ in us (Ephesians 2:14) and the calming assurance we have that He is absolutely sovereign over all things, working everything together for good (Romans 8:28)  The peace He promises isn’t from avoidance of persecution, but from His presence with us in the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23, Hebrews 13:5,6).

Our prayers must reflect God’s priority. Jesus said it this way, If you love Me, you will keep My commandments (John 14:15). The entire focus of a Christian’s life is on glorifying God through joyful, humble obedience to Christ.

God is far more concerned with our holiness than with our health, our love than longevity, our character more than our comfort, our sanctification than with our safety. Not even Jesus during His earthly ministry prayed for His personal protection. When teaching us to pray, Jesus said…lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:13). That deliverance is not from potential physical harm, though it may include it, but from the impact of devastating sin in our lives. 

The same thought is repeated when Christ prayed, I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one (John 17:15). The protection we plead for is the calming assurance Paul speaks of in 2 Thessalonians 3:3, But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.  

If safety is our top priority, worship can become our greatest neglect. 

How can we say along with Christ Your will be done (Matthew 5:) if what we actually mean is, as long as it does impede my quality or quantity of life. It’s hard to imagine the three Hebrew standing before Nebuchadnezzar ’s idol refusing to compromise God’s glory, if their hearts were even slightly concerned with their safety.

Our concern for safety stunts our obedience to the Great Commission, and willingness to suffer for righteousness. When self-preservation is our first priority, we engage unbelievers when the potential outcome leaves us with comfortable results. The call to missions is ignored, the fields white for harvest are abandoned and the pathway to hell is left unobstructed all because Christians place their temporary quality of life above the eternal priority of proclaiming Christ. We can not seek first His kingdom (Matthew 6:33) while seeking first our tranquility.

If our prayers reveal our priorities, then elevate our prayers for holiness, courage, faithfulness, humility and move our prayers for safety to second place. It’s isn’t wrong to put that before God, just don’t make an idol out of safety.

After all, God controls the day of our death (Psalm 139:16, Job 14:5). That has already been established long ago. Nothing we do changes that appointed date (Matthew 6:27). So live in the freedom of one who has already died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). Pray that we use whatever time we have on earth to do our Father’s will, show His kindness to this unbelieving world and call everyone we find to repentant and believe in Christ.

Studdard Kennedy served as a chaplain during World War 1. From the front lines he wrote this powerful statement to his family:

The first prayer I want my son to learn to say for me is not

“God keep daddy safe,” but “God make daddy brave,

and if he has hard things to do make him strong to do them.”

Life & death don’t matter … right & wrong do. 

Daddy dead is daddy still, but daddy dishonored before God

is something awful, too bad for words.

I suppose you’d like to put in a bit about the safety too, old chap, & mother would.

Well, put it in, but afterwards, always afterwards, because it does not really matter near so much.

So pray for safety, but put it second.

Recognize that question? Maybe your family asks you as well. Every single day, that question is asked multiple, times. Whether out of common courtesy, gauging energy or concern over something deeper, your answer matters.

Many days, I don’t want to answer. The thought goes through my mind: “I lived it once, I don’t want to live it again by telling anyone.” But this is important. In fact it is one of the simplest ways to show how God is working all things together for good (Romans 8:28) and how God gives grace in time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Here’s a couple thoughts to keep in mind when answering that question:

1 Point out how God gave wisdom and grace in various situations.

2 Recount ways you encouraged someone, or demonstrated the love of God.

3 Do not burden their hearts with problems they cannot solve. If necessary, talk about a problem you are working through without slandering the people involved.

4 If it was a hard day, talk about how God gives grace.

5 Ask about the “Mountain & Valley” of their day? Listen carefully, without comparison or contrast. Just listen & love them back to strength.

How you respond will either saddle them with burdens they are powerless to change or lead them to greater trust in God and confidence in you. Don’t turn your battle for bread into their battle for joy.

Keep about your work

Do not flinch because the lion roars; do not stop to stone the devil’s dogs; do not fool away your time chasing the devil’s rabbits. Do your work. 

Let liars lie, let sectarians quarrel, let the devil do his worst; but see to it nothing hinders you from fulfilling the work God has given you. 

He has not commanded you to be rich, he has never bidden you defend your character, he has not set you at work to contradict falsehood about yourself, which Satan and his servants may start to peddle. If you do those things, you will do nothing else; you will be at work for yourself and not for the Lord. 

Keep at work, let your aim be as steady as a star. You may be assaulted, wronged, insulted, slandered, wounded, and rejected; you may be abused by foes, forsaken by friends, and despised and rejected of men. But see to it, with steadfast determination, with unfaltering zeal, that you pursue the great purpose of your life and object of your being, until at last you can say, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.” 

Author Unknown

If you can keep your head when all about you men are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowances for their doubting, too.

If you can wait but not be tired of waiting, or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, and yet don’t look too good nor talk too wise,

If you can dream but not make dreams your master, If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same,

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build them up with worn-out tools,

If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,

and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss,

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone,

and to hold on when there is nothing in you but the will that says to them “hold on,”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you but none too much,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, and which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.

Rudyard Kipling

It’s true, almost all of them have now passed away. The most recent one was in his mid 90’s, a tough-as-nails Marine who was saved at Guadalcanal after a shoeless jungle boy handed him a ragged page of Luke 2. Mr. Louy as I knew him, gave that boy his military issued boots in exchange for the gift of the saving gospel message.

I could give you pages of personalities, each one born between 1920-1940. They mesmerized me with their stories of surviving depressions, dust bowls, world war, loss of everything from children to spouses, homes to jobs. They knew incredible success and endless adventure. They traveled the globe by boat, planted churches, were captured as missionaries and held in prison camps, tortured for Christ, awarded bronze stars, tormented by plagues and scared by injuries. They never missed a vote, worked in the Conservation Corps, built the highway systems, filed patents, developed the stock markets, and Rosie the Riveter wasn’t a poster, it was their life.

They were my childhood friends, and invested in us constantly. One gave me my first rifle, a 30-06 he had built. Another, put his war torn Bible and his wife’s journal of missionary work in my hands. They counseled me through the teen years and proudly came to our wedding. They endured my first sermons and gave critique that was blunt and inspiring. Their jokes never leave my mind. Their ability to find humor in life, and see the hand of God moving in the worst of tragedy framed my thinking. They did not complain. They were fearless, frail and frugal. They not only lived their theology, they exemplified it and stamped my life with their love. Eternity was on their minds as they taught me to see beyond the horizons. They could speak of repentance and forgiveness over the course of decades and watched God’s work of redemption unfold. They were the spiritual fathers (and mothers) written about in 1 John. It was a privilege to look them in the eye, hold their hands and hear their voices.

One by one I attended their funerals. When old enough, I started to do their funerals. My friends that once sat with me, slowly faded away into that great cloud of witnesses that is receiving their treasured inheritance with our Savior.

Where do you find such hero’s? We found them every single Lord’s Day in our church. Not just in the general pew, but in the senior adult Sunday School class. My dad was their pastor and almost every week that is where you would find us Stitzinger siblings. Though we had a tremendous student ministry, nothing could compare to the living legends that surrounded us in that chapel where the Agape Fellowship Class, as it was known then, would meet.

Looking back, there are lessons I am still unpacking. Lessons of marriage, parenting, faith, contentment, hope and endurance. Only now can I begin to understand the overwhelming privilege we had spending those formative years in their presence. Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” They knew His wisdom, and in their gentle and resolute way, they made sure we listening.

Pastor’s, make it easy for the youngest and oldest believers to find each other. Titus 2 discipleship shouldn’t have to fight its way through ecclesiastical bureaucracy. Creating meaningful interaction will reap benefits for generations.

Parents, put your children in the way of truth. As they sit under the pure teaching of the Word, as you diligently shepherd them at home, put them in the way of godly elderly people who exemplify holiness and humility. Though they may buck at the awkwardness at first, teach them to hold the hand and hear the voice of those who have walked with God for longer than any child can imagine. It’s more than a blessing to senior saints, it’s a priceless investment in the next generation. One day, every voice you once called for wisdom will no longer be there to answer. But their words of wisdom will engrave the Scriptures on your child’s heart and mind. In doing so, you will “train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).