Boy running near horses at night.

God’s Protection over Us

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Here in west Texas where my husband, our children and I live it has been quite a year so far. We have had high heat temperatures, plenteous rains, and warm nights that do not cool until wee hours of the morning. While the rain is a blessing for our cattle and all livestock involved, it is not without its burden, the dreaded rattlesnake.

I am by nature a cautious mother when my children are running wild out the screen door, my husband and father-in-law jokingly call me a “mother hen keeping her chicks under wing”. While I know I do worry and watch over my children, I also know they are in God’s hands.

One evening as our horses were coming in from grazing, we noticed one of them lagging in the back, he is usually pretty spunky, so this was unusual. As he came closer, we realized he had been bitten on the end of the nose by a rattlesnake. There was no way to halter him, and his nose was bleeding and oozing.

My husband immediately started praying for the poison to be caste out of him. After fetching my mother-in-law, she and I also prayed a prayer of healing over him. It took only a few days but with faith and prayer God healed him from the bite.

Fast forward a few weeks, I went out one evening to separate our chickens from my father in law’s, much the norm. As I went from pen to pen in our intertwined chicken coop, I was oblivious to what was lurking in the corner. As I walked through one pen, checking to make sure I had all my hens and knowing I was missing one I stepped through the door and went on my way calling in my flock.

It was not until I came back through that very pen that God projected the image from the corner. Curled up and not making a sound, only a few feet from me was a Mojave rattlesnake. Needless to say, I swiftly and quietly walked past it and praised God in heaven for keeping the snake’s mouth closed.

Once outside the pen and in a very safe distant, I called for my husband. It was only a few minutes later I saw my little red hen curled up behind a barrel dead from the bite of the serpent. Fast forward a week, my husband and dogs opened the back gate of our patio, all three stepped in, much like the thousands of times before, only this time not knowing the danger.

Just as my husband and the dogs reached the step up from the gate, the buzzing started. He quickly turned around and low and behold lay another deadly rattlesnake. After herding the dogs out the front gate and disposing of the snake, did he fully realize what happened. God yet again, and this time even though my husband and dogs stepped RIGHT OVER the snake, kept the snake’s mouth closed.

Today while my husband was doing some cattle work for a man, he was riding through a pasture herding cows to be penned. In a matter of seconds the all to familiar buzz of a rattlesnake started, after quickly turning his horse away from the snake and going about his way only to run into another one only a handful of feet away and yet again being saved from the snake. In this series of events over the last few weeks have we fully realized the true protection of God when you speak his words of protection, and the unending love he has for us and the creatures of this earth.

In Psalm 119:117 KJV
Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually.

Proverbs 1:33 KJV
But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

Proverbs 18:10 KJV
The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.

Proverbs 29:25 KJV
The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.

Ezekiel 34:28 KJV
And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.

These are only a few verses stating the power of God and the safety he has for us. We all know the story of Daniel and the lions, in which when the king arose the next morning and hurried to the den and called to Daniel and he answered in Daniel 6:22 KJV:

My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.

Right there is says God shut the mouth of the lions! I have really realized the power of this in the last few weeks. When in the natural one could say it was luck we and my husband’s horse when he was riding were not bitten, but it was not luck, it was the grace and mercy of God. Much like the way a father and  mother worries over their children and strives to protect them, the same way a child knows they can trust in their father and mother, that is the same protection God has over us only magnified so much more.

Even when we are lacking in areas, even when we know we have failed, God loves us through these things and wraps us in his protection. We are like children trusting in God, because we know he will keep us safe when we call upon him and like proven time and time again, when we do not even realize the danger. Glory to his name! Trust in the Lord. As it says in James 4:7 KJV

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You are blessed in the name of the Lord.

One Response

  1. faithhealsall2016 7/12/2016

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