Safety First

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“When I lie down, I go to sleep in peace; you alone, O LORD, keep me perfectly safe”. — Psalms 4:8

I don’t know what scares you, but there are a few things that cause me to doubt my safety. I hate deep water, for example, and tend to hyperventilate when swimming where I can’t see the bottom. I think it’s the sense of being out of control that gets me. I once swam into a submerged cave with just a snorkel and mask. The opening was not visible from the surface and I had to dive down about three feet then in about nine feet before I could surface inside the cave to breathe. Even though I had a guide with me, it was pretty freaky. To top it off, when I got back to the boat I found that I was bleeding from cuts I had gotten off the sharp rocks. This bleeding is not normally considered safe in waters that are shared with sharks! I thought a lot about my safety that day.

In life there are many things that make us feel unsafe, and in the military we actually agree to go places because they are unsafe. I have seen people react very strongly when they feel threatened. Selfishness seems to be the most common response—doing whatever makes us feel safe again without thinking too much about the effect we are having on others. I think we also tend to think about safety in physical terms, when in reality a lot of our feelings of being unsafe are emotional. This is sometimes evident in our marriages.

I think what can occur is that something happens to erode our feeling of security in our marriage—it can be a harsh word (or a series of harsh words), an absence of communication, miscommunication, having our spouse become distracted by someone or something else, or anything that suggests we may no longer be valued as much as we would like to be. Sometimes we feel insecure just because of circumstances . . . such as our spouse being deployed for a long time to somewhere we don’t want them to go. Often we immediately try to make ourselves feel safe again by doing things that make us feel more in control, such as returning harsh words (offense being the best defense), returning silence with more silence, or criticizing our spouse in the hopes they will change. I think that our natural response to feeling unsafe is to try to regain control by defending ourselves, even against our best friend.

It is rare to see someone selfless when they feel unsafe or threatened, either physically or emotionally. It can be argued that many who appear brave are really doing so out of fear of being labeled a failure or a coward. Those who genuinely remain calm and selfless have probably worked out what Psalm 4:8 is talking about.

When King David wrote this Psalm, he wasn’t lounging by the pool enjoying a refreshing drink and listening to the birds chirping. He was dealing with multiple personal threats and the challenges of leadership in a time of war. Yet in the midst of all the pressure on David, he could still sleep peacefully because he had realized that his safety came directly from God Himself.

This is huge. What this suggests is that because only God can keep us safe, our response to physical or emotional danger should not be to rely on ourselves and try to manipulate our circumstances to make us feel safer. Instead, the answer is to rely entirely on God . . . . even if there are sharks in the water and we are bleeding.

In marriage God gives us many instructions about how to treat each other, and I note that none of them are conditional on how we are being treated at the time. I think that God is telling us to treat each other with love and understanding in spite of the circumstances and He will look after our physical and emotional safety. In fact, because He is the only one who can make us safe, if we do anything other than follow His instructions and rely on Him, we will always be unsafe. I would like to take on David’s attitude and sleep soundly knowing that God is my safety, no matter what.

Questions to share:

1. What things make you feel unsafe in your marriage?

2. When you think about these things, how do you feel and what natural responses do you feel like carrying out?

3. Thank God for providing your safety, no matter what the circumstances. Ask the Holy Spirit to remind you constantly of that truth so that you will not feel it necessary to defend yourself against your spouse.