God’s instinct is to protect his children.
Psalm 91:4 (ESV)
“He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge.”
In this statement we find another metaphor, a comparison between some concrete thing in this world and our relationship with God.
Picture this. A mother duck and her six, week-old ducklings leave their nesting place for an awkward waddle to a nearby stream. Halfway there, a hawk circling overhead spots them. One of those tender ducklings would make a tasty breakfast. The hawk dives.
But the wary mother spots him. She quacks an alarm to her ducklings, and they hurry to her side, where she spreads her wings, her pinions, over them for protection. For the hawk to seize one of the ducklings, he must first deal with the mother. Her wings provide refuge.
Motherly protection
This is what God does for you. He has given you a picture that reveals his heart for you. The metaphors in the previous verses of Psalm 91—of a fortress and military refuge—have emphasized the strength and invincibility of his protection. That is not the intention of this metaphor, because bird feathers are not invincible, and a mother duck or robin does not pose much of a threat to a hawk. No, the purpose of this metaphor is to show God’s heart, the heart of a mother who protects her small, helpless young.
Parental love is fierce, instinctive, selfless, uncalculating.
Instinctive protection
The Bible tells the story of two mothers who appeared before King Solomon with one live baby. The two mothers lived in the same house, and each claimed the baby as her own. The true mother explained to the King:
“Oh, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were alone. There was no one else with us in the house; only we two were in the house. And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. And she arose at midnight and took my son from beside me, while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning, behold, he was not the child that I had borne.” (1 Kings 3:17–21, ESV)
Back and forth the two mothers argued. Finally King Solomon called for a sword and commanded the baby to be cut in two, with half going to one mother and half to the other.
The lying mother looked at the true mother vindictively and responded, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him.”
The true mother, however, “because her heart yearned for her son,” said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death.”
Motherly love instinctively protects.
Protection that covers
Parental love is a covering love. “He will cover you with his pinions.” You are “under his wings.” Although God is an invisible spirit, he is real and he is covering you. Picture that—believe that—rest in that whenever you go to the grocery store in this season of coronavirus.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)