September 3, the I will of God. Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls

because of the multitude of people and livestock in it, and I will be to her a wall of fire

all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst, Zechariah 2, 4 and 5.

There are mornings when I wake up feeling fragile, vulnerable. It's often vague, no single threat,

no one weakness, just an amorphous sense that something is going to go wrong and I will be responsible.

It's usually after a lot of criticism, or maybe after a lot of expectations that have

deadlines and that seem too big and too many. As I look back over about 50 years of such periodic

mornings, I am amazed how the Lord Jesus has preserved my life and my ministry, the temptation to run

away from the stress has never won out, not yet anyway. This is amazing, I worship my great God

for this. Instead of letting me think into a paralysis of fear or run to a mirage of greener

grass, he has awakened a cry for help and then answered with concrete promises. Here's an example.

This is recent. I woke up feeling emotionally fragile, weak, vulnerable. I prayed,

Lord, help me. I'm not even sure how to pray.

An hour later, I was reading in Zechariah seeking the help I had cried out for. It came.

Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls because of the multitude of people and livestock

in it and I will be to her a wall of fire all around declares the Lord and I will be the glory

in her midst. There will be such prosperity and growth for the people of God that Jerusalem

will not be able to be walled in anymore. The multitude of people and livestock will be so many

that Jerusalem will be like many villages spreading out across the land without walls.

Prosperity is nice, but what about protection? To which God says in verse 5,

I will be to her a wall of fire all around declares the Lord.

Yes, that's it. That is the promise, the I will of God. That is what I need.

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