OUR REFUGE
Nahum 1:7
The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him,
Tonight was the last day of any firearm season for deer in the UP of Michigan. It was muzzleloader season for the last week and we had gone into it with high hopes… it didn’t pan out like we had hoped. We had many good bucks on our trail cameras and they were coming out to eat before it was getting dark in the afternoons. The weather changed and the deer went into hiding. The only place we saw any good sized deer was in the thick heavy cover and then we never got any good opportunities.
Somehow the bucks knew enough to stay in the heavy cover until the light had faded, so they weren’t exposed. The were in their safe place and they knew it.
In today’s world we hear about, “safe places” all the time. Colleges even have safe places for those that are upset over election results or hurt feelings. While some of these safe places, or refuges, might be carrying the concept a little too far, we do need a place where we can go when trouble comes. A refuge that is more powerful than all of our problems.
When we lived on Kodiak Island there was a building part way up the mountain that was kept supplied with food and fresh water. It was a tsunami shelter and it was a safe refuge for the people of the village below. Everyone knew that if the siren sounded in the village they could head to the shelter to be safe. There was everything the villagers needed to survive there.
The book of Nahum, in the Old Testament, is a written prophecy and a warning to the land and people of Nineveh. It is three chapters of God telling the people how sinful and detestable they have become and what is going to happen to them. But right in the middle of chapter one, in the very center of reading of the wrath that will come down on the people, we read or God’s love and how He is “a refuge in a time of trouble… for those who trust in Him”.
As we face times in our lives when it seems our walls are caving in around us; when we feel like there is no way out of the pain and anguish we are feeling, we know where to take refuge. There will be times when we are under siege from an incoming tsunami and it seems like this time we will certainly not make it out, we need to climb the mountain and take refuge in the one that created the mountain and has calmed the storm.
In Psalm 46:1-3
1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
The Psalmist makes it perfectly clear that no problem, emotional, physical or spiritual is too big for our God. If we will learn to take refuge in Him and lean on Him alone for strength, then with the psalmist we can face the most extreme crises with quiet confidence, because God is with us and He is sufficient.
Whatever you might face, take refuge in Him.
Help achieve the mission - GIVE today
Click the button to sign up for Dean’s Daily Devotional. FREE and delivered daily.