Our Shield, Our Protector

“The Lord, your God is with you; the mighty One will save you. He will rejoice over you. You will rest in His love; He will sing and be joyful about you.” ~Zephaniah 3:17 Wow! He will save you, rejoice over you, you will rest in Him, and He will be joyful about you! This scripture says a lot. During the past few weeks, we have been preparing our home for another winter. In late February 2026, after a long winter in which we used 200% more wood for our furnace than previous winters; we experienced our first chimney fire. The first Sunday of every month, our family gospel band comes home from church, eats a fast lunch, then loads sound equipment and instruments into my SUV to sing at a nursing home in West Virginia. It was by chance my daughter happened to look up while she was gathering things from her car and noticed we had flames shooting up in the air! While my wife called the fire company, my son worked on getting the fire extinguished in the lower part of the flu. It was at this point, I noticed how unprepared we were! Our fire extinguisher had zero pressure, and I had nothing to throw into the furnace to stop the fire. The Lord was with us because the firemen came from a hall only a few miles from our home, placed ladders up on our snow covered roof and extinguished the upper part. Before leaving, they cleaned the flu, checked the indoor temperatures, and inspected the furnace pipe. Our furnace was safe to continue using and nothing was cracked in the chimney! Plus, as the fire trucks were exiting our home, we were able to pull out of the garage and make it to our singing time, only being 5 minutes late! We were trusting in the Lord, thanking Him for the help He sent us, but we were unprepared. How many times are we unprepared in our spiritual life? As for our home, we purchased 2 sticks that can be thrown into the furnace in case of fire and a new fire extinguisher, which I will check its pressure often from now on. Spiritually, we are thanking the Lord for all the safety and blessings He has given us as He continues to use our music ministry in His service. 1 Peter 3:12-13 says, “The Lord sees the good people and listens to their prayers. But the Lord is against those who do evil. If you are tying hard to do good, no one can really hurt you.” The Lord is our shield and our protector. He has promised to protect and equip us, and we must be ready and alert at all times. There will be fires, storms, and trials. And the Lord will remind us to keep our armor ready for any enemy attack.