My daily prayer is that God will build a high hedge around those I love, that will keep happiness—destroying intruders out. My prayer is, “Keep them from accidents, wrong choices, and disappointments.” I will always pray this way, BUT that is not the way Jesus taught us to pray. In his pattern for our prayers, he said “deliver us from the evil one.” In the last instructions to his disciples (John 17:15) he said, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.”

The evil one has one purpose – to separate us from God. Satan rips at the prayer-planted hedges that surround us and our loved ones in order to destroy our faith in a loving, caring, faithful, good God. Satan will use good times as well as bad times to separate us from God.

God’s concern is not about the security of the hedge, but protecting us from the evil one.

I will keep praying that the hedge of protection from temptations, trials, and consequences of a fallen world stays high around those I love, but more than that, I will pray that wherever the hedge thins or comes down, they will reach their hand through the gap and grip God’s hand even tighter.

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)

 Martha Hawn VanCise©2021