If I were to have kept a record of every prayer I’d ever prayed for protection, I would imagine that the vast majority centered upon my request for physical protection, followed by that of financial shielding.
Truth be told, those were the only two types of protection requests for which I made supplication. When seeking God’s hand of protection for myself, my family or friends… I was always focused on the physical and financial spheres of life.
However, as we desire to mature in our Christian walk, there’s another area we should be most mindful of regarding God’s protection. That being, spiritual protection. Point-in-fact, our prayers should resound in asking for God’s hand to protect us spiritually first and foremost, followed by our physical and financial safeguarding.
When studying the life of David, we discover a man who had a heart after God’s own heart. David was far from perfect, but his heart longed for God, He thirst and hungered for intimacy with the Almighty. His prayers recorded in the Psalms speak often of physical protection and yet, it’s when we turn to Psalm 19, verse twelve and thirteen, that we see a most amazing supplication from a servant’s humble heart:
“How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Keep me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin.”
What a prayer for spiritual protection… the depth of David’s words came from a broken spirit and contrite heart. He knew he couldn’t trust himself and pleaded with God to protect him from deliberate sins.
This simple prayer from Psalm 19 has such profound implication when uttered before the Lord. To be free of guilt, kept from deliberate sins, protected from our fleshly nature to rebel against God’s Word and His holiness… that’s a protection we all need!