PROTECTED – Anna Jacobs
July 11, 2018
It is amazing to me how many object lessons the Lord has given to me through my vegetable garden. This is the first year it has a crop that hasn’t been eaten down to nothing by groundhogs. My husband spent years trying to perfect the fencing (there are two layers of fencing now, one metal and one a very tall mesh to keep out deer). The groundhogs had eaten through the mesh like it was butter in past years. Today, I was looking out my window and saw one trying to chew through the fencing. Evidently, it didn’t succeed. It walked around the garden, trying again and again, but failing. I asked the Lord to drive it away, but instead, He made me aware of something—the fence. The groundhog was not getting into the garden because the fence was strong and dependable. The plants were safe and growing strong. God put into my heart the spiritual analogy that we, His people, are His garden. He will not let the enemies of our souls penetrate the fence of His protective love—unless it is to teach us a lesson. For many years, God allowed the groundhogs to ravage my garden because (at least from what I could see of it) He was teaching me some very deep lessons. I was a slow learner. Unfortunately, sometimes the slower we learn, the harder the lessons.
My daughter, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I will never let the groundhogs of your soul utterly destroy any of my people. I may allow them to tatter your leaves, and leave you feeling weak and desperate, but I will never let you die, my little ones. You may feel like dying…but you will not die apart from my word. And never, never, never can my little ones whom I have chosen for myself, be plucked out of my hand. Oh, my church, the people of my possession, whom I have purchased with my own blood, I love you. I love you so much that I will chastise you, because I discipline those that I love and punish everyone that I accept as a son. Endure hardship as discipline, my children; I am treating you as sons and daughters! (Hebrews 12:6-7) Oh, but do not fight against me, my children. Do not kick against my goad. The more you resist me and continue to listen to the carnal voices of the flesh and the world and the devil, the more you will need me to yell in your ear and put you through hell on earth to get your attention. Oh, but you would rejoice and be glad that it is hell on earth and not the Lake of Fire to which I would send you! The Lake of Fire is eternal torment, to a degree that you cannot ever fathom here on earth. I will chastise you as I need to bring you back into alignment with myself and to show you who I truly am and what I have truly come to do with you and in you. My children, when you have learned your lessons of obedience from what you have suffered, then you will find pure joy in me. You will rejoice in the God of your salvation! My children, you will find peace, knowing that you are protected. You are hemmed in by my love and surrounded by the strength of my fierce army. Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. You are mine. You are inside the fence of my powerful love. Bask in this, my children. Take in the sun of my radiance (being in my presence), the life-giving water of my Word and my Spirit, and live, my children. Live in me eternally—protected.
James 1:2-4: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
John 17:3: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
