197. God is a Buckler
2 Samuel 22:31 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
God’s way is always right, indeed it is perfect. His way is whole, complete, and it considers all the contingencies. “His ways are higher than our ways.” Very often, it does not seem so right and good to us, but we submit to God’s ways and believe that God and His way is good, right, salutary, and perfect in every way. He knows the end from the beginning and guides every step on the way with supreme wisdom. We need a promise like this because we often seem to be stumbling around and wondering why things aren’t going so perfectly, but we are willing to leave it all in God’s hands trusting Him to work out everything for good. And He does!
The promise in this verse, however, is that He is a “buckler” to those who trust in Him. A buckler is a shield. A shield protects the body from the slings and arrows and flaming darts of the enemy. Faith is the shield that protects the soul from the arrows of the Evil One. And they are many, but we always have the shield for protection. We can’t prevent the Enemy from slinging his flaming darts, but we can stop them with faith, for the promise is for “them that trust in him.” The promise is given to strengthen our faith (our buckler) so that we may take refuge in Christ.
Faith and trust is a precious gift of God, but the devil, the world, and our own flesh is always struggling with us to take the shield away. But no! We hang on in faith and trust the buckler. For we have a promise. One reason we do not always turn to the Lord for help and protection in times of struggle is that we forget that the Enemy is always lurking about us, and so we do not see the troubles as arrows of Satan. If we could see we would hold up the shield. Instead, we believe, and we hold up that gift of faith in front of our minds and emotions to quench the flaming darts. When we recognize trials and temptations as spiritual warfare we are ready with spiritual armor, like faith as a shield, and we trust God. For God is not only good; He is perfect.