"O Yahweh, You are my Elohim. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. For You have made a city a ruin, a fortified city a ruin, a palace of foreigners to be a city no more; it will never be rebuilt. Therefore the strong people will glorify You; the city of the terrible nations will fear You. For You have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; for the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. You will reduce the noise of aliens, as heat in a dry place; as heat in the shadow of a cloud, the song of the terrible ones will be diminished.
"And in this mountain Yahweh of hosts will make for all people a feast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of well-refined wines on the lees. And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and Yahweh-Elohim will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for Yahweh has spoken.
"And it will be said in that day: 'Behold, this is our Elohim; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is Yahweh; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation'"
(Isa.25:1-9, NKJV).
There are times when we all feel terribly alone and helpless in our life situation. Yet the truth is we constantly have help even when there is no human help to be found. And help can come in all sorts of unexpected ways.
As a scientist I have wondered much about scientific discovery and how the unfolding of science has fitted into the scheme of faith. Science really only got off the ground during the last century.
Take the discovery of of the antibiotic penicillin. It revolutionised health care. Prior to the Second World War bacterial infections were commonly fatal but since then penicillin has saved millions of lives. Quite understandably and deservedly the men responsible for the recognition of penicillin's potential, and for its development, won a 1945 Nobel Peace Prize.
But long before the discovery of penicillin a much older system was at work killing bacterial invaders and doing so silently without man having a clue what was going on until recent times. These silent killers and protectors are our leucocytes or white blood cells! These hard workers were built into our biological system by Yahweh Himself and work 24/7 protecting us from disease. I think we would be amazed were we to discover how many invasions of our body they have prevented since we were in our mother's womb and indeed saved our very lives. And whilst we award the developers of penicillin by giving them the Nobel Prize, have we ever thanked Yahweh for this amazing bio-protective system?
Yahweh is not just working for the protection of our bodies, moreover. He is working in our life situations continually too even though we rarely see His hand at work. And yet who do we most commonly blame when things either go wrong or not the way we wanted? He seldom gets credit for the countless rescues He performs for us every year.
Every day we we get up, get dressed, go to work or school, drive to the grocery store, and return safely to our families. No one knows how many times Yahweh has protected us from harm. But when there is a tragedy, people ask: "Where was God?"
Tragedy is a part of the fabric of life in this fallen world. It's a battle-ground but for those who try trust and rely on Messiah there is more than average protection. He is a sure protector and does wonderful unseen things for us every day.
Comments from Readers
Agreed. :) I've been seeing this more and more in my life lately. Its almost humorous, when I think disaster is about to happen, people and situations change so that, in the end, I'm protected. I know He's behind it and I can now understand what He meant when He said "I raised up (such and such a people)" to attack Israel in different places of the Old Testament (mostly Isaiah). It almost makes me want to be a Calvinist at times. ;) (DR, USA, 22 April 2010)