Death by Security

Everyone longs for security.

We build houses that withstand storms, we buy insurance policies to protect against rainy days, and we hover over our little ones in an attempt to guard them from danger.

Security is part of the American dream. We deserve to live securely. We work to live securely. We love feeling secure.

But can security ever turn into a problem to avoid?

A while back while reading through the Bible I stumbled upon Judges 18:7-28. The passage has riveted me and given me reason to pause.

You probably can’t guess which story I’m talking about. And I could almost bet that most of you have never even heard of the people of Laish.

God sets the stage for the story in vs.7 where it says that the people of Laish “lived in security, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting, lacking nothing that is in the earth and possessing wealth, and how they were far from the Sidonians and had no dealings with anyone.”

Sounds like heaven to me.

They had money. They had land. They had houses. There was nothing that they wanted that they couldn’t get. No one bothered them. They had it made.

How could anything go wrong when so much care was taken to ensure complete security?

Well one day the people of Dan (one of the tribes of Israel) sent out some spies to explore the land and happened on the people of Laish. It didn’t take long for them to get it figured out. They quickly ran back to their brothers and said: “Arise, and let us go up against them…As soon as you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people.”

We pick up the story a few verses later in Judges 18:27. It says “the people of Dan…came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire. And there was no deliverer because it was far from Sidon, and they had no dealings with anyone.”

They died because they were too secure.

They died because they were too safe.

You can build a high wall around you. You can cover your belongings with hedges. You can stack rolls of dollars in the bank. You can fool yourself into thinking that all is well.

But unless you are looking to the Lord for your security, all the time and effort you put towards building an imaginary sense of security can dissipate in a moment, in the blink of an eye.

Only God can protect you from harm. Only God can guard you from evil. It doesn’t matter how rich you are. It doesn’t matter how safe you think you are.

Or as the Psalmist puts it: “Some trust in chariots, and some trust in horses, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7).

Death by security. I don’t want to die that way.

Are you living too safely?

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