Quis ut Deus?
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38-39
I’m very grateful for the daily verse my Bible app gave to me. I lost a great deal of sleep last night thanks to some disturbing dreams, and this time, something shadowy looming by my bedroom door. For the last few years, my dreams have taken an unpredictable dark shift towards malicious, invasive nightmares that leave me feeling like something is haunting me when I wake up. My paranoid worry that I’m not alone in my dark room gets amplified on the worst occasions when I see a shadowy figure standing silent and ominous by my bedroom door, staring at me as I panic.
Whether these things are a figment of my agitated imagination, or genuine evil spirits trying to intimidate me, I’ve had to work on fighting my fear and responding with courage, and reminding myself that God’s got my back. Initially, I was too terrified to say a full prayer when greeted with the first apparition’s malevolent, smug sneer, and was paralyzed until it finally disappeared. It’s taken a couple of years to make myself change in that regard.
Last night, while having a dream where my family was worried about my in-dream sudden change in health, I abruptly woke up to see what looked like a Nazgul/Ringwraith from The Lord of the Rings standing by my door: a dark, faceless figure that made me shudder despite my refusal to be afraid. I snapped at it to get out of my room, and when I rashly bolted out of bed to attack it, it faded away. When I woke up again a few hours later, I was greeted with this verse to calm me down and assure me that God was very much with me in my moment of fright.
This verse from Romans is a well-known reminder that there is, quite literally, nothing in this world or the next that can stop God from protecting us. No matter how terrifying any foe may be, physical or otherworldly, we’ve always got God watching out for us, and there’s never an enemy strong enough to prevent Him from saving us.
Featured Image by Myriams-Fotos/Pixabay
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