Stay safe?

Ever since the Covid pandemic, it has become quite common in the media to hear at the end of an interview the exhortation to the guest to ‘stay safe’.

Sometimes I receive messages which close in the same way. Perhaps at the beginning of a new term, when children are sent off to school, or teenagers to university, or a new season of life or work begins, our instinct is the same – our great desire is that our loved ones ‘stay safe’.

Perhaps we might express that same concern using the language of the Aaronic blessing, that the Lord would ‘bless and keep’ our friends and family members. We assume, perhaps, that this is a prayer to be kept from danger. Rather, as Michael Glodo points out in his little book The Lord Bless You and Keep You, the concern of the blessing is not just for protection from external threats, but preservation in the ways of the Lord.