Saved . . . From What?

 Saved from What?

“He redeemed them from the hand of the foe.”

— From Psalm 107:2b

There is a quiet but powerful truth buried in this verse: We will be in the hand of our foe. That’s the premise of the psalm — not comfort, but crisis. Hunger. Thirst. Captivity. Wandering. These aren't rare exceptions; they are part of the human condition. The rescue doesn’t negate the struggle — it presupposes it.

I remember a thoughtful conversation with Father Harry Schaefer, rector of St. James Episcopal in Dexter, during my time as organist in the late 1970s. He once remarked, “We say ‘Jesus saves,’ but most people think, saves us from what?” It’s a valid question — especially for those who haven’t yet named their own trouble. And yet the answer always returns: from foes. From darkness. From despair. From that thing that presses you down, silently or screaming.

Psalm 107 says He saves — not just abstractly, but from the hand of someone. A real enemy. A real trauma. A real grief.

Many believers are taught to spiritualize their pain, to press through, to call it a "flesh wound." We excel at this — smiling through injury, quoting Scripture over scars. But trauma doesn't vanish because we’re polite. It lingers. It stunts growth. It waits in silence until we're ready to name it, and finally, to be healed from it.

Jesus redeems us from that. Not instantly, and not always in the way we expect. But surely. And fully.

Even now, I battle a fog of bitterness and anger that only the closest few suspect. But it is precisely in that place — in the hand of the foe — that redemption begins. I believe that in eternity, when asked if we’d live our lives again, many of us will say: “Absolutely. And make the trials harder — for I now see the rescue more clearly.”

Like a runner who dreads the first step, we may begin in pain. But the finish? The finish makes it all worth it.