Guardian God The Watch-Care of God

God is the Guardian God for his people. 
They will never forget nor ignore me. 
I am guarded by the Guardian God. 

Psalm 121:3, 8

I love to people-watch. In grocery stores, at airports, on planes, out walking their dogs, during church. I begin to imagine the lives of these people. What is their story? Do they know Jesus? Do they know how much God loves and cares for them?

God also loves to people-watch. All the time. Everywhere. Psalm 121 tells us that God is the Guardian God for his people. You have a Guardian God who exercises great care and closely watches your comings and goings. God is watching over you, actively caring for you. Your Guardian God knows everything about you. God sees and understands your concerns, worries, struggles, trials, and is ready to strengthen you for what lies ahead. The Guardian God is watching, a God who has a personal and foundational love for you. Find rest and peace in this truth.

The Guardian God does not merely watch us from some far-off place. Rather, God comes close: right next to us, closer than our breath. The watch-care of God is with us in all the concerns, worries, struggles, trials, and messes of our lives. The Guardian God travels alongside us as we journey through this life. Most often, God does not change the circumstances of the situation, yet provides the needed healing Presence, peace, and strength for the hard and crooked places of life.

When have you experienced the watch-care of God?

I recently returned from a 30-day enclosed experience through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. For thirty-one days, I sequestered myself in a Carmelite Monastery in Benoni, South Africa, guided by a true master of the Exercises.

Before I left, my spiritual director asked me, “Becky, can you let God care for you during your time in the Spiritual Exercises?”

I didn’t know if I could do that. I had never consciously let God care for me. Did I even know how to let someone else care for me? I was the one who always cared for and watched over others.

A good friend of mine asked how she could pray for me during my time away. I invited her to pray that I would surrender and truly trust God to care for me throughout the experience.

I found myself in an unfamiliar and foreign place. I was in a winter climate (I am not a fan of the cold) when it was summer at home. Food I longed for was either unavailable or proved difficult to access. I was embarking on a journey, and I had little idea where it would take me, surrounded by people I did not know and separated from the ones I love, except the One who invited me to spend significant time alone with Them.

I was put in a situation where I had no choice but to let others care for me. Would I let God do the same?

I began my 30-day journey remembering what love has been for me in my life. I recalled memories of being loved in my childhood, my teenage years, my young adulthood, up into the present. I began realizing how these experiences of love were expressions and reflections of the Guardian God. Seeing and perceiving that the Guardian God is already active in my life—even as I have been unaware—gave me a deeper capacity to rest, trust, and surrender into God’s deep care of me. I became aware that the watch-care of the Guardian God is undergirded by and founded in Love. God watches and cares for me because God personally and foundationally loves me. Me!

I encountered the Guardian God in such a life-changing, personal, intimate, and experiential way. The Guardian God watches and cares for you, too.

Two spiritual exercises to encounter the Guardian God experientially:

First, remember what love has been for you in your life. Recall memories of being loved in childhood, your teenage years, young adulthood, and up into the present. Then, place your story of love within a Psalm. Psalm 136 rehearses God’s loving presence in Israel’s history line by line. Each memory is followed by the refrain, “for his steadfast love endures forever.” As you rehearse the Guardian God’s loving presence and activity in your own life and recall each loving gift you have been given, create your own short verses followed by, “for his steadfast love endures forever.” Consider letting your heart be drawn to specific expressions of God’s loving watch-care, presence, and action in your own life.

Second, read through one of the four Gospels, noticing the ever-present watch-care of the Father and the Spirit for Jesus. Notice experiences of the loving presence and activity of God in the life of Jesus—in Jesus’ birth, exile, childhood, teen years, ministry years, death, and resurrection. What do you notice? In what ways was it meaningful and important to Jesus? What does this reveal to you about the Guardian God?

Inspiration 

Psalms 23

The Lord is my shepherd
The Lord is my Good, Righteous, and Virtuous Shepherd Jesus, you are my good, valued, treasured, and loving shepherd

I have all that I need
There is nothing that I need
If I do not have it,
I do not need it

I have enough time
I have enough creativity
I have enough talent
I. Lack. Nothing.
I. Am. Enough.

You lead me to green meadows
My soul rests in the center of lush, flourishing pastures 
My soul is still
My soul is at peace in the midst of abundance
I am satisfied I am content I trust You

You lead me beside still waters 
My hunger and thirst have been satisfied and quenched
You have consumed my discontent and distraction

I am content and accepted
You renew my strength
You restore my soul
You refresh my spirit

You guide me along right paths
Paths of righteousness, mercy, and justice

Bringing honor to Your name
Transforming my life and making me new,
Revealing Your power in me.

Even as I walk
Even as I resist
Even as I stumble and fall

Through the valley of the shadows 
Shadows of Fear
Anger
Self-doubt
Self-loathing

And death
Death of self
Death of relationships,
Hopes
Dreams
Desires

I will not fear
I trust you
You are the Good Shepherd 
It is totally reasonable not to be afraid
For You are close beside me

You are with me
in front of me
behind me
on top of me
underneath me
inside of me.

Your rod and staff
Your training tools
Protect, guide and comfort me

You spread a table before me 
A table overflowing in goodness and abundance
Inviting, welcoming, wooing

This table is in the presence of my enemies
My enemies of fear,
doubt,
anger
Self-doubt
Self-loathing

In the midst of the calamities and chaos in my life and in the world

This is audacious

Yet, You honor me by
anointing my head with oil

You believe in me to be a blessing to others
You give me the capacity and the passion to be a blessing

My cup overflows My life is full and abundant
Surely goodness and mercy will pursue me
Goodness and mercy will flow from me
All the days of my life

The good days
The hard days
The sad days
The happy days

I will live in the house of the Good Shepherd
I will find my place
I will be welcomed home
To the presence of the Shepherd

Forever
And always.

–Becky Grisell