The Hedge of Protection: Slow Growing, Easily Jumped, Not Nearly Enough Protection for these Crazy Times

I think the uber-popular Christian prayer request for a “hedge of protection” is in the Bible, but I’m not sure. It sounds like something David would have written in the book of Psalms. He is very poetic and our most Bono-like writer. But a friend of mine once revealed that he’s always found that to be an inadequate security measure. As a child, when his mother would pray that he would have a hedge of protection or a hedge of angels around him, he would think, “Anyone can jump a hedge. How hard is that? Forget the hedge of angels; I’m praying for a dome of angels.”

At first I laughed at that story, but the more that I thought about it, the more it made sense. These are troubling times, and I’ve never seen a hedge and thought, “That thick collection of bushes is both terrifying and impenetrable.” Maybe instead of praying for a hedge of protection, we should pray for:

A Beaded Curtain of Wasps

A Trampoline Moat of Lions

A Rugby Scrum of Angels