What If God Has Been Protecting You From Dangers You Never Even Saw Coming?

I sat down with my journal this morning and landed on Psalm 18:30: "God's way is perfect. All the Lord's promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection." (NLT)

My first thought was: I've never read this before.

That happens to me more than I'll admit. I've been in and around church my whole life, and there are still scriptures that show up and feel completely new. This one hit like that. And then the prompt asked me to think about the ways God has protected me and take a moment to praise Him.

So I started writing. And here is what came out.

I went back to college.

College me was reckless — actually reckless. I put myself in situations I look back at now and genuinely cannot believe I walked out of. I was young, I thought nothing could touch me, and I was not close to God the way I am now. Not even close.

And yet. I'm here.

I kept writing, and more came. I've been through suicidal thoughts. I've survived sexual assault. Heavy things. Real things. I don't always talk about them out loud, but they happened, and I lived. I've been through seasons that should have broken me, and I'm sitting here on a Tuesday morning doing a Bible study journal.

My son is healthy. My home is standing. I have never been robbed, never been carjacked. And while those might sound like small things, they are not small. They are evidence of a God who shows up in the everyday — not just in the dramatic testimonies we hear on Sunday morning.

But here's what the verse unlocked that I wasn't expecting:

God's way being perfect does not mean my life has been perfect.

I have spent so much energy trying to be enough. Good enough, consistent enough, spiritually mature enough. And this verse quietly reminded me — His perfection doesn't depend on mine. His way is perfect. My way has taken some serious detours. But His? Flawless. Even in the middle of all of mine.

And then this: "He is a shield for all who look to him for protection."

All. Not the people who have it figured out. Not the people making all the right choices. Not the people with a clean record. All.

That means the version of me in college making every wrong decision still qualified. That means the version of me at my lowest point still qualified. That means you, right now, with everything you're carrying — you qualify.

Here's what I've come to understand about protection: most of it is invisible. We only see what we survived. We never see what God blocked before it even reached us. We get frustrated at doors that closed, paths that didn't work out, people who left. But sometimes — a lot of times — those were shields. God keeping something dangerous away from us before it could even reach our front door.

I spent years frustrated at things that didn't work out. Looking back, those were shields. Every single one.

I don't know where you are today. Maybe you're in the middle of something hard and feel completely unprotected. Maybe you're looking at your past and feeling like your choices disqualified you from His covering. Maybe you've never stopped to count what He's kept from you.

Stop and count.

The bad things that happened are real. But so are the bad things that didn't. Both are evidence that God has been on post. He hasn't moved. He hasn't stopped. He's not keeping score of your failures — He is keeping you.

Praise Him today. Not because everything has been perfect. Because He has.

Peace, Love and Joy always — Infinite Faith and Favor | InfiniteFaithandFavor.com