To be near unto God - pagina 102

stroke of the sword. But always in such a way that the soldier carried the shield himself that he moved it now this way, then that, and held it out against the attack. "The Lord is my shield" does not say therefore that God protects us from a distance and that he covers us without effort on our part. "The Lord is my shield," is the language of faith. It springs from the consciousness that God is near at hand, that faith lays hold on him, that we use our faith in God, that therewith we resist our assailant, and that in this

way, being one with God through faith, we realize that we are covered with his Almighty power. In case of extremity a mother can stand before her child and cover her darling with her own body. And then we can say that the mother is a shield to her child. And God is the shield of our little ones, who do not yet know him, and who can not yet put faith in him. But this sacred imagery was not borrowed from this. It was suggested by the soldier who in many a hard and bitter fight had used the shield himself to the saving of his life. Indeed, the shield is to a man what wings are to an eagle. With the trained warrior the shield is, as it were, a part of his body. It is one with his arm. And his fate hangs by his dexterity to use it. And so the Lord is a shield to those who trust in him, to those who believe, to those who in times of distress and want know the use of the faith which never fails, and who by faith understand that God directs their arm. The shield points to battle and to the struggle against everything that threatens to destroy us. 94

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