Psalm 16:1-2 “Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the
Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.”
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” - Mike Tyson
When I was a kid, I had a tree house that was built high into a massive tree. I could see the whole area from it, I even formed a gang with the gang numbers being only one… myself. Tells you the kind of childhood I had.... sad. I used to go there to feel safe, safe from the world when it became too much or when mum and dad were fighting. It was my fort,
but unfortunately I had to come home for dinner and go back into the wide world.
Given the state of the world with COVID19, the war in the Ukraine, the bubbling up of tensions between the power houses of the world and the seemingly insane people who are leading these nations, I want to go back to my treehouse and never come home again. I am pretty sure I would have more than one in my gang now. Can we ever feel safe and secure in this world? Over the last several years, more bunkers and underground dwellings have been built than ever before and doomsdays preppers are growing. I get it, so how can we have joy and peace in a world that is volatile and totally unsafe?
Well the Psalmist was in perilous times as well, David knew all to well the fragility of the world and the lack of safety it could bring. King David was a military man and would have had military forts for protection and refuge, yet that is not where he said he felt safe and protected it was in The Lord. Where do you find refuge? is it your home, family, your job
security? To have a surrendered life we must understand what the word refuge means, and believe that the Lord can actually deliver it. I would go one step further to say that the rest of the keys anchor into this. In other words if we don’t believe that God can deliver refuge we will not live a joyful and content life.
Refuge: the state of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or
difficulty.
So, as you can see we cannot surrender ourselves completely unless we feel safe and sheltered from all threats. We of course say that we find refuge in Him, but do our lives, speech and actions convey this. Are we troubled like the world or do we stick out? When John Wesley was on a ship with some German believers and the ship began to sink, he
witnessed the saints singing hymns and were at complete peace. This is when he recognized he didn’t have what they had, which was that peace. We should be different in times of trouble. However, we will at times fail due to the fact that we are practical people and we sometimes believe what we see as reality.
If we truly understand the splendour of the effect of the gospel, and the one who offers such refuge we too would look no where else for our protection, even when life punches us in the mouth. Like a punch to the mouth it hurts when we are plunged into despair, physical and/or
emotional turmoil. Or when plans don’t go to plan or if the world decides to blow itself up. Because of this safety we don’t have to turn to the worlds cheap flimsy poor excuses of refuge, like finances, relationships, houses and other assets or world ideologies or other
false religions rubbish.
Our God is safer than all the military bases combined, or anything else we can turn to. We then can lead a joyful life in sweet surrender to Jesus. We have this only when we whole heartedly (Head, Heart and Hands) - Trust in him.
Blog Author: Shayne Goldfinch
