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Honor

             My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. (Psalm 62:7)

Chances are, we’ve learned that our salvation depends on God. At least, our eternal salvation. I suspect none of us is as convinced that our daily salvation (in whatever form that might take) depends on Him, or that we even need daily salvation. That’s something we might do well to pray about and a challenge we would do well to explore, but the rest of the verse is the focus today, because I suspect it leads to our eternal and our daily salvation.

Imagine not having to protect ourselves all the time. Maybe that’s easy for you, but it’s not for most of us. Some of us spend our lives fighting against multitudinous threats. They’re not always big or physical, but they endanger something in us that seems important to us. Yesterday, a deaf customer came into the garden center, and my signing has never been good but is way out of practice. After she left, I felt bad because I wasn’t able to sign adequately to her. I failed. Yep, tiny, insignificant, silly reason to think I failed, but dismissing it as tiny, insignificant, and silly is also self-defense. It’s so much a part of our lives that we often don’t notice that we’re doing it. Now, if our defending ourselves required that we pick up a broadsword, we might notice, at least until we learned to use it and built sufficient muscles.

So again, imagine not having to protect ourselves. Imagine a rock fortress we could run to for safety. What would that feel like? What would it feel like to have even a little honor that we didn’t have to defend with our every breath? Imagine having enough honor (even a tiny bit) that we didn’t feel like we needed to fight for it. Part of me laughs at the idea. Another part rationally considers how much time, energy, and “self” I could save if I weren’t constantly on guard. I remember complaining to God years ago that I didn’t know how to not fight. I can’t say I’m much better now.

And part of this is, I think, because I spend so much time thinking about how much I need to defend myself. What if we could put aside five minutes a day for the next week, in which we didn’t defend ourselves, but allowed God to do so if it’s needed? And the next week, we put 6 minutes a day? What if we paid attention to this like it was important? Imagine if we got to the point that we honestly believe that whatever honor God gives us is enough.

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