Problems are for Solving

The other day I was talking to a friend around lunchtime about a house. It was important to my friend that the home be in a “safe� neighborhood. That was only days after I got an inquiry about another house that asked if the neighborhood was “safe.�

I know that I am weird on this, but I don’t believe in safety the same way most people seem to speak of it. I’ve only had my car broken into one time in the twenty years I’ve been driving, and it was while it was parked eight feet from my parents’ front door in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in the suburbs of a small city. My stereo was stolen in a “safe” neighborhood.

Since 9-11-01 it seems that people in the United States are consumed with this issue of safety but it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter what is done to protect us, people who are willing to die in the process of committing a heinous act will always be able to do so. There is no way to humanly protect everyone.

Every night when I put the children to bed safety is on my mind. That’s because we sing a short song that is the text of Psalm 4:8:

I will lie down in peace

In peace and sleep

I will lie down in peace and sleep

You alone O my LORD make me dwell in safety

I will lie down in peace . . . and sleep

God alone makes us to dwell in safety. There is no safety apart from Him.

I live in a neighborhood now that many people consider to be not safe. I sleep peacefully every night and fear no man—because God is watching out for me. Because he makes me to dwell in safety, I can lie down in peace . . . and sleep.

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