Wouldn't it be wonderful?

"A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked."         - Psalm 91:7-8

 This has been my memory verse for this week. I struggled the first several days to understand this verse. What is going on?! Who is the "you" the verse is referring to? Israel, myself, God, David? Who is speaking right now? Why is this person not being affected by the people dying around them? Why are the people dying? What does "recompense" mean?

recompense - compensation,as for injury, wrong, etc. to make recompense for the loss one's carelessness has caused. a repayment or requital, as for favors, gifts, etc. a remuneration or reward, as for services, aid, or the like.

I read the entire 91st chapter to see if some context would help me understand. Not so much, a lot more of the same.

This verse is hard. It doesn't immediately give me a sense of security, peace, victory, excitement, or confirmation like so many other verses do. In fact, because I don't immediately understand it I am tempted to just pass right by it and not give it a second thought.

I remembered I had just downloaded a commentary app on my phone so I flipped over to it to see if it could shed any light on the verse. And it did! The idea is that you (or me or your uncle, whoever) is standing on a battlefield with everyone fighting around you and killing each other but you remain untouched.

I instantly had a movie playing in my mind. Literally, the lights dimmed, the projector screen came down, and a short film played right before my eyes.

The scene is a huge battlefield, miles long with thousands of soldiers teeming up and down the rolls and dips of the landscape. Everything looks dipped in sepia, all brown and gritty and dirty. The camera slowly moves over the length of the battlefield on face level, zipping past hundreds of soldiers locked in deathly combat. You can see the sweat spraying out as they lock arms, the dust kicking up, and the blood creating mud underneath them. Suddenly the camera comes right in front of a person just standing, in the middle of the battle. This person is not extraordinary to look at, simply dressed, hard to distinguish age. This person is visibly sad, observing all of the terror around him/her. He/she is strikingly clean compared to everyone else and you realize that none of the sweat, blood, or dirt is affecting him/her...it just floats right through. People are falling in death behind him/her and soon the camera pans out to look at the scene from behind him/her. Everything is still as the camera moves backward to take it all in. Nothing but dead bodies for miles, with this one person standing right in the middle.

The camera fades to black and the verses Psalm 91:7-8 slowly form on the screen.

All of a sudden, these verses made so much more sense to me! Something about seeing the picture, especially such an extremely dynamic one, stirs my emotions.

I got to thinking...would this work with other verses? Could this possibly help other people understand those weird verses or passages that don't make a whole lot of sense?

I say yes! What if there was a ministry that took verses and put them to video, like what I've done with Psalm 91:7-8? There would be no speaking or very minimal at that. The point is not to make a motion picture but to illuminate those hard to understand verses. Short videos, only a couple minutes long. They would need to be high quality, well done. Pastors could use them for their sermons, small group leaders to start discussion, and obviously it would have a benefit to someone's personal walk!

This is a great idea.

Do you know anyone or any organization that already does something like this? Do you think this would be of real benefit to people? Comment below and tell me!