Stay safe?

Ever since the Covid pandemic, it has become quite common in the media to hear at the end of an interview the exhortation to the guest to ‘stay safe’.

Sometimes I receive messages which close in the same way. Perhaps at the beginning of a new term, when children are sent off to school, or teenagers to university, or a new season of life or work begins, our instinct is the same – our great desire is that our loved ones ‘stay safe’.

Perhaps we might express that same concern using the language of the Aaronic blessing, that the Lord would ‘bless and keep’ our friends and family members. We assume, perhaps, that this is a prayer to be kept from danger. Rather, as Michael Glodo points out in his little book The Lord Bless You and Keep You, the concern of the blessing is not just for protection from external threats, but preservation in the ways of the Lord.

It was the purpose of the priests and Levites to ‘keep’ the tabernacle – preserving from sin and uncleanness – just as Adam and Eve were called to ‘keep’ the garden, not least against threats of sin and corruption. When Phinehas, filled with zeal, impaled the idolatrous and immoral Israelite and his Midianite consort, his top priority was not to ‘stay safe’! Yet he was faithful precisely in this act of ‘keeping’ the people of Israel from apostasy, and the judgment of the Lord.

Staying safe never seems to have been a priority for the apostle Paul; if it was, he wasn’t very good at it! He boldly proclaimed the gospel amidst dangers of hardship, shipwreck, imprisonment, beatings, and being stoned and left for dead. The Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of deliberately embracing hardship, suffering and death in the service of the Father and of His people.

Since Covid many of us seem to have become more averse to risk, not only in the realm of health but also in our work and finances. But perhaps the greatest risk is in fact worldly thinking and worldly values. Faith always involves risk. We see this again and again as we read the biographies of Christian leaders and missionaries, but also in the lives of faithful believers in all sorts of vocations and situations who have been willing to give up (or lose) their job, or risk their finances, or take on a challenge. The apostle Paul’s testimony of his own suffering and vulnerability in 2 Corinthians 4 makes sober reading, and yet he testifies that it is as he is willing to give himself over to death, so the life of Jesus is revealed (2 Corinthians 4:11).

So, how do we pray for ourselves, and for our children, and grandchildren, at the beginning of a new season of life? Will we just pray that they ‘stay safe’; or in the words of an earlier generation, ‘Live long and prosper’? Or will we pray that the Lord will take them and use them for His glory. There may be risk, and hardship, and challenges, but if they are consumed with the glory of God and ‘kept’ from sin and evil then there will be much greater blessing and rewards, not only now but for all eternity.