My future is in your hands. Rescue me from those who hunt me down relentlessly. – Psalm 31:15 (NLT)
At some point in our lives, we all need rescuing. Whether it is from something that has happened to us through no fault of our own or something that we have done ourselves, we all end up asking for help to get out of it. Most of the time it is on an outer level – usually physically, financially or because we are in trouble. We ask God to rescue us from that situation but how often do we ask God to rescue from us internally?
Our thoughts and feelings can get us into trouble frequently. We keep falling into traps that sometimes are influenced by what we see happening around us and in the world. All these outside influences are regularly fed to us through the media, our family, and friends. What the world thinks we should be doing can conflict with what God wants us to be doing. Once again, we ask God to free us from these influences.
However, our own human nature can be just as bad as the outside influences we encounter. Our human desires and thoughts can be shaped by outside influences but also by things that are in us from birth. Our personalities start developing from the day we are conceived. We like certain things and hate other things. Some people are creative and others active. The seed of who we are meant to be gets corrupted. When our soul wants to follow God’s will and our humanity doesn’t, that is when we get into the biggest trouble of all. That is when we need God to rescue us more than ever.
Knowing what we should and shouldn’t do creates a conflict within us. Our human nature, when it is tempted wants to give in and our soul tries to resist. Unfortunately, most of the time our human nature wins. In defeat, our soul suffers, and we regret giving in. This battle between our human nature and our soul continues, with the same pattern repeating itself over and over. We give in to temptation and we regret it soon afterwards.
God knows that this is a battle we will face daily for the rest of our lives. Jesus faced the same battles, and He knows that it is tough and hard to overcome our human nature. The enemy is not only the outside influences we encounter but ourselves. In fact, as the old saying goes, we are “our own worst enemy”. Human nature does hunt you down relentlessly and it will do anything to win.
To secure our soul’s future, we need to draw daily from God. Each day we need to ask him for His strength and courage to overcome our human nature. When surprise attacks happen and we face temptation, God is waiting for us to call upon Him for extra strength. It is only with God’s help and love that we can be overcomers.
The next time, you have to face off against your human nature, when you need to be rescued from yourself, remember the Great Rescuer. Only God has the equipment to save us and even if we do fail, He will always be there, ready, and willing to give us a helping hand.
Originally published April 2019