Psalms 91,H1N1 and It is time
June 26th, 2009Was on my way home yesterday evening on the bus and what i saw on MobTV triggered this whole note. If you did follow the news updates,you’ll know that the H1N1 flu is past the tipping point here in singapore, and in just 6 days, 5% of all flu cases here reported here were H1N1 cases, and many of these new cases had no travel history, no contact with H1N1 cases. Sounds like its a pandemic breaking out now. But as i pondered about it,these thoughts came up: I realised that in just the course of this past one week,many people around me have reported that they have running nose, sore throat, and some of them had fever. I myself developed a running nose and sore throat, and initially, i suspected i had H1N1. But the Lord brought Psalms 91 to my remembrance as i pondered, and what a timely promise it is!
Psalms 91- He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge- then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
Even as all that is being discussed about in the media is mostly negative bad news, it’s the season that we have to learn to take God totally on His promises!and He promises in Psalms 91 that when we make Him our abiding place, He’ll protect us from pestilences (i.e H1N1)! All fear of being infected with H1N1 disappeared when i read through this psalm, because I can take God at His word when i look to Him and not at fear. There’s a true story I really love to share here to the best of my knowledge. It’s a true story of my fellow neighbour(literally next door), Joel Yeo, who also is a fellow Gener. When he was in N.S doing his BMT, he recited and prayed Psalms 91 each morning before he started his day. And in BMT, one of the most dreaded rite of passage every patriotic singaporean man must go through is a 6day5nights field camp out in the jungle, w/o bathing and tons of commando mosquitos and stealth sandflies! It is ABSOLUTELY guranteed that nearly every chao recruit will guarantee ’stamp plus chop’ get at least a couple of itchy bites during the outfield.(I’ve been experienced b4 so i know how it feels..thank God for ORD!) Well, as per usual, Joel recited Psalms 91 each morning and guess what…at the end of the field camp, he did not suffer even a single bite! Now some ppl will say he is ‘heng suay’ (super lucky in Hokkien) because he is cold-blooded, but with God, there’s no such thing as ‘heng suay’ , because God is a promise-keeping God! We keep our end of the deal, God keeps His.It’s as simple as that. We will not need to place our trust on the physical seen things all the time, and learn to depend on Heaven’s endless resources!
How incredible is Joel’s testimony??If Psalms 91 is a better mosquito repellent than Baygon or OFF! sprays, let’s claim it’s promise of God’s protection upon our lives even in this season of the H1N1 pandemic. A
lso, another thing that this outbreak really stirred in me is to start praying like never before for our generation of young people in Singapore. According to Channelnewsasia.com: “One in two H1N1 patients in Singapore is below 20 years old. Over at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), the average age of H1N1 patients is 10 years.” The enemy is clearly targeting the young people in our nation and also in the world,with the intent to destroy them. If the devil can’t destroy them by pre-marital sex,self-mutilation, depression etc., he hurls such diseases at them. But it is our obligation as Christians to pray like never before and stand in the gap! It is time to stop praying them to God, but to pray God to them. We can’t convict and change their lives, only the Holy Spirit can, so let’s pray rightly.It’s also time to stop praying wishy washy prayers that hinge on “I wish he will get saved” or “I think he will be saved”, and start praying by faith of the unseen: “He WILL be saved!”. It’s time to stop praying to save our own skins, and start praying for God to save their skins!It’s time to stop wearing the selfish diapers of ‘How to deal with annoying people in my life” “10 keys to overcome rejection in my life’ and start doing our Father’s business of bringing souls to know Jesus Christ. I say this from experience; when I focused on doing God’s assignment for my life, He took care of my struggles, worries, anxieties and the breakthroughs just kept coming. Guarantee stamp plus chop!
The world is being plunged into gross darkness and wickedness the likes of which the world has not seen before, because we are living in the last days. But as Rom 5:20 says: Where darkness/sin abounded, grace abounded even more. As the world gets darker, we who truly love Jesus, our lights can only shine brighter and brighter! Let’s ask God once again for hearts that will weep,repent,travail and birth forth a fresh cry for revival.. His burden.Every revival started with a tear;a tear that soon gushed forth into a river of tears, from a heart that felt how God’s heart painfully broke when another S’porean youth decided to take his life. But also from these seasons of weeping and travail came forth a fresh move of revival in schools like Changkat Changi, AHS, KC etc and then came rejoicing and fullness of joy!
Great days are ahead of us.Let’s be strong and very courageous, for the land occupied by the enemy is ours for the taking, because God has given us the victory!