What is God’s protection?

It seems to me, after deep meditation and prayer, that my two churches have an inordinate amount, statistically, of folks with illness, big and small.
I mean good folks. Folks who mean quite a bit to the churches. Folks who are loving and kind. Folks who have been and will continue to be leaders.
So, this goes out to them, and their kin, and their friends.
As I was praying, my thoughts overpowered my silence. As I prayed for each by name, I began to wonder about God’s protection for them. I prayed a hedge of protection around each person, and I wondered – God help me – about whether the hedge was, er, without holes, without gaps, without leaks.
I sought explanation in the scriptures, reading this from King David: “When I was desperate, I called out, and God got me out of a tight spot. God’s angel sets up a circle of protection around us while we pray. Open you mouth and taste, open your eyes and see — how good God is. Blessed are you who run to him.”
I was mesmerized momentarily with this notion of circle of protection.
So, I went on a word search. David certainly thought God would protect him in times of great need. Over and over, he mentions it.
My favorite, I guess, was Psalm 98:18 -- “Yes, our protection comes from the Lord, and he, the Holy One of Israel, has given us our kind.”
Or maybe it was, “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy! I look to you for protection.”
The list crawled on and on and on. In each instance, it was folks in trouble, crying out to a God who listened, who protected them.
Interestingly, in my efforts to word search protection, I came across a certain blog, mine own.
A couple of years back, apparently, I had gone searching for meaning after a storm hit.
I read in a story written by a friend in a Jackson, Mississippi, newspaper of the tornado that had struck Macon County a while back.
My friend quoted a woman from Shuqualak, Mississippi, Cindy Moore, about the aftermath of the tornado.
Moore’s sister and niece were in a “cinder block building, going through items for a yard sale, only a few hundred feet from her home on Mississippi 21. “When I looked out, there was nothing left of it but a pile of rubble,” Moore said. “I went running as fast as I could. A family that I guess had been passing by stopped and was frantically digging through the debris. All of a sudden I saw my niece’s head pop up. Then I saw my sister trying to crawl out of it. Nothing but the grace of God kept them alive. There is no other way they could have survived that.”
Let’s explore those thoughts a minute. Did God protect them from the storm? Is that the business He’s in? So, he protected Moore’s family, but did not protect the person who was killed in Kemper County, Mississippi, by the same storm. Was this person not cared for by God? Was this person not as “good” of a Christian?
What about God’s protection for everyone?
Isaiah’s prophecy says, “The Lord says to his people, When the time comes to save you, I will show you favor and answer your cries for help. I will guard and protect you and through you make a covenant with all peoples.”
God’s protection doesn’t mean that nothing will ever happen to us. Frankly, it can’t mean that. Let’s put it this way: If all the people we prayed God’s healing upon were healed and never died, then we would run out of food on this planet pretty quickly. Dying is a part of life, as it were. Everyone can’t be healed. They just can’t.
God’s protection, I think, is better explained in Romans 8:28. “We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose.”
I believe this passage means that even if the storm strikes us, God can take that and make something good out of it. It doesn’t mean, however, that the storms never come. They do. But even in the worst of circumstances, God is there, walking through them with us. And yes, protecting us by making the bad turn good. Doesn’t take away the circumstances, but instead God simply says we won’t be alone when we go through them. That’s protection in its finest form.
Is that protection in the manner we would like it to be? Probably not. But it is God’s way. It doesn’t mean we won’t go through stuff. It means we will make it through.
Sometimes that’s all it takes for those who love him.