Safety of our Souls

I have been pondering of late the safety of my loved ones. I tend to fear for their physical safety often and find myself praying frequently that God would keep them safe. I was thinking about how my most often uttered prayer for them is their physical safety and I began wondering if this was a properly balanced plee. I decided to first investigate the Psalms out of curiosity on the direction of David's prayers. I noticed that he did pray for physical safety, but his greatest pleas for safety was for the protection of his soul. I know that our prayers are the overflow of our hearts and I began to wonder what this implied David's focus was. I wonder that if I truly believe in my deepest heart that God works all things for good and that He has all my days written than should I be fearing for mine and my loved ones physical safety? Yes, I should use all wisdom and discernment to keep us safe and yes, I should pray for protection, but should I be in constant fear, consistently pleading for safety or should I trust in the almighty and sovereign hand of the God who loves me?

I also began to wonder if it is all in my perspective. If my perspective is eternal than I would consistently realize that the safety of our souls is of the highest importance. If my focus is earthly, I tend to forget what is of the greatest significance.

Perhaps my responsibility in keeping myself and my loved ones safe does not solely lie in our physical safety but rather, I should be putting just as much significance on our eternal safety if not more. If my child is physically safe sitting in front of the TV while I work does it make it alright if I am introducing his little soul to things that do not honor God? We put so much effort and thought into the protection of our bodies that we think as long as we are physically safe we can relax and in doing so we sacrifice our souls and our childrens' by our apathy. From an earthly perspective as long as our children are physically well we have done our duty, but is that truly fulfilling our responsibility from a godly, eternal perspecive? We think if our child is physically safe in a group of kids that we can be free from worry, but do we question what they are learning spiritually in that group? Perhaps my prayers and heart should take a new direction. Perhaps my prayer today should be for safety of body, but also with David I should say, "Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men. For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul:" Psalm 59:2-3a