Last Updated on June 5, 2024 by Sarah McCubbin
What does it mean that God is our Deliverer? Most of us have been in a place where we felt trapped…without hope. Whether it was a circumstance we caused or something totally out of our control, we know what it is like to feel alone and without options. God knew that we would face those times which is why He promises to deliver us. Let’s look at what that means.
Looking back over my life, I can remember many times of feeling trapped. Whether it was sickness…finances or feeling unsure what to do, I know that feeling. Being trapped is one of the most horrible feelings. You feel powerless and hopeless like you are simply subject to whatever happens.
God Is Our Deliverer in Psalm 91:3
In Psalm 91:3 it says,
“For it is He (God) who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence.”
Here “deliver” means to “rescue, save, snatch away, escape.”
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This is an intervention by God himself on our behalf. We are never trapped no matter how desperate our situation seems when we have a Father who is our rescuer and delights to save us from our trouble. God is our Deliverer when it looks like there is NO WAY OUT!
A “snare” is a trap intentionally laid to catch prey. It is placed in the path of the animal it is supposed to catch.
A “trapper” is precisely what it sounds like…the one who lays the trap. In the Strong’s another word for a trapper is “bait-layer.”
Satan is the “bait layer” in our lives. Friends…he is a deceiver and delights to cause chaos in our lives. His greatest strength is to observe our lives and know our weaknesses…and lay bait right in our place of weakness.
So this picture of God is of a kind Father who comes along and frees us from our messes.
For my entire life, I’ve had a dad who demonstrated this so well. As a lawyer, he would regularly use time at the dinner table to educate us about the “snares” in life…the places young people commonly get in trouble with the law. He has always been good at looking down the road and helping prepare us for the next thing.
I wish that I could say this all this training meant that none of us ever made mistakes. But that isn’t true. Some of us did end up in legal dilemmas. And when we did, there he was…right next to us lifting the trap off of our lives and giving guidance to get us free from the mess.
Not only does he free us from the traps of the enemy, it goes on to say he delivers us from the deadly pestilence.
What is “pestilence?”
Again in the Strong’s Concordance, we find that “pestilence” is a deadly disease or plague.
God delivers us from both traps that we fall into….and disease.
Often, when we are in either situation, we look at our lives and think we somehow caused this…or deserve what is happening. But even if that were true, our good Father delights to give us better than we deserve when we dwell in His shelter.
God is our Deliverer!
Applying the truths in Psalm 91 begins by believing the promises of God over our circumstances. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” We can have a sound mind by taking every thought we have captive and comparing it to the truth of the word of God (2 Cor 10:5).
Instead of relying on our own wisdom and knowledge we MUST not only read the world but CHOOSE to believe it over our circumstances.
Sarah McCubbin and her husband and 9 kids live in Ohio. She loves talking about all kinds of education topics and is passionate about helping families find the best education options in each season! Socially awkward growing up, she loves to help families teach life skills, social skills and leadership.
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