OUR REFUGE
Nahum 1:7
The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him...
As we come down to the end of another hunting season, my mind is looking ahead to plans for property for next year. For the last few days, I have been laying out potential food plots in my mind. Food is one of the best tools for holding deer on your property. However, you can have the best food sources in your entire area, but if you don't have a safe sanctuary for the deer, they will feed there at night and leave as soon as they feel pressure. Cover for the deer, to feel safe and take refuge in, is even more important than food sources.
In today's world, we hear about "safe places" all the time. Colleges even have safe places for those who are upset over election results. 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 worked at a lodge on Kodiak Island, there was a building a ways 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.
The book of Nahum in the Old Testament is a written prophecy and 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 about 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 that seem like 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 spiritual "tsunami", and it will seem like this time we will certainly not make it out. In those moments, 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, it reads:
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."
The Psalmist makes it perfectly clear that no problem — neither emotional, physical, nor 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.
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