TRUE PLACES

It is not down in any map; true places never are. — Herman Melville in Moby Dick

The summer before I turned forty years old, I learned something about my storm-tossed soul that ushered in a fresh experience of Jesus.

I sat on a sagging bed in a rented apartment where my family had traveled for a ministry assignment in a city over a thousand miles from home. The dirty bedroom with cracked walls and carpet stains offered the early morning setting where I was about to read a passage of Scripture that wouldn't let me go. I tied my hair back in a rubber band — the kind that come in packs of twenty but can rarely be found when needed — and adjusted my glasses. I heard our children, now in the preteen and teenage years, scrambling to get dressed. I stretched out a hand to find a mug and gulped down the coffee with hazelnut creamer my husband had delivered like it was vital medication for the ailment called waking up in the morning. I flipped open the Bible, ready to pour all this exhaustion, anxiety, and homesickness onto any words that could neutralize these emotions.

I turned to Psalm 97 and read from verse 10 that God "guards the lives of his faithful ones."

I stared at that word — guards — as if seeing it for the first time.

I swallowed more coffee. I kept staring.

It seemed like such a clear, easy statement to understand — God guards the lives of His faithful ones — and yet I wasn't sure I fully got it. Believers in Jesus were counted as His faithful ones, and this included me, but what could it mean that God guards us? This verb presented a secure and safe reality, but in my Christian life, I rarely felt secure. If God was guarding me, I certainly didn't know how to experience this in any tangible form. The questions persisted like termites chewing at my soul: Is God guarding us? Where is He guarding us? For what purpose?

The simple verb ignited a firestorm of urgent questions within because I knew I wasn't living as one guarded by God. Someone God guards surely wouldn't feel this unstable, unsettled, and immature.

I refilled the mug and began the search that would profoundly change my soul, transforming my inner being into something stable, settled, and mature.

"Guards," is shamar in Hebrew, which means to hedge about, keep safe, protect, watch carefully, preserve. Usually shamar refers to the "keeping" of the law — guarding, observing, and carefully preserving God's words — but when used in multiple psalms, the word suggests a person fenced in an enclosure being carefully watched over and protected. The psalmists often connected God's guarding presence to a physical, surrounding location like this. King David, for example, asks God to guard him as he takes refuge in Him and makes Him his fortress (Psalms 16:1; 31:2).

Finally, the "lives" that God guards is actually the word for "souls," so a more precise translation of this phrase in Psalm 97 is "God guards the souls of His people."

But where is guarding happening? Where is this refuge? Where is this fortress? Since it's not anything we can see with our eyes, how are we to think of it?

Searching the Scriptures to examine what God guards and how He guards it in us, I learned that the Bible presents us with a Savior who dwells in our inner being by the Holy Spirit and who imparts all the characteristics of God's guarding presence to our soul. I wanted to learn every aspect of what this guarding presence was like because I hadn't come to know Jesus like this. I knew Him as my salvation and that I was seated with him in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6), but I didn't know Him as a Guarding God. I didn't know everything He was doing in my soul.

Could understanding more about our Guarding God help us as Christians "grow up in [our] salvation" (1 Peter 2:2) so we would become "thoroughly equipped" for the good works God had prepared for us to do (2 Timothy 3:17; Ephesians 2:10)? I wasn't sure what I would discover as I searched the Scriptures to learn more, but I just knew this: God was already beginning to transform me as I met Him as my Guarding God.

On the very day I prayed that God would teach me more about His guarding presence, I watched as my husband, Ashley, prepared our older daughter for her first day out alone in the city without us. While Ashley and I kept busy with ministry assignments in this new city, our younger daughter was enrolled in the camp provided. But our older had the freedom to choose some independent activities. For the first time in her life, she would ride her bike alone to meet her friends, enjoy a lunch out at a restaurant, and then spend the afternoon hanging out downtown. She was growing up — this was normal and right — but I wasn't ready.

Her dad delivered final instructions as he adjusted her helmet around her blond ponytail. I heard him remind her about her bike lock, wallet, and phone, but then all I could think about was losing her to kidnapping, traffic accident, or random disaster. I said goodbye and watched her pedal off from our apartment.

Then the anxiety came. I just knew something terrible would happen. I left for my seminary classes that were part of ministry training, trying desperately to focus on the lectures. During the day, the phone buzzed with several text messages. I plunged my hand into my bag, breathless and nervous each time. Was Sarah hurt? Was she missing? Had a flood come and swept her into a ravine?

The stream of messages came:

"She made it through the intersection! I see her!" Ashley texted. He even snapped a photograph; I could see that blond ponytail flying and those feet pedaling with confidence.

And later:

"She's with her friends! I'm going to 'accidentally' meet her and give her more money for lunch."

And later:

"She s in the restaurant. She's doing great! I see her."

All day long on that first day Sarah was without us, my husband trailed our daughter in the minivan, unseen by her. He was guarding her carefully, watching over all of her needs, and assuring her well-being. Sarah never knew her daddy was following her that first day on her own, but he was. He was there the whole time.

As I sat there with the phone, tears formed. I imagined the gentle whisper of God deep in my soull: "This is what it's like between you and Me. I guard you like this. I'm taking care of everything that concerns you."

And that simple verb, guard, became my new favorite word in Scripture.

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As a writing instructor specializing in vivid verbs, I teach college freshmen that...