Refuge

             The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. (Psalm 9:9)

Refuge: a condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble. It comes from Latin terms meaning back and to flee.

I’ve provided the definition of refuge above but what does a refuge look like to you? On the 25th, I wrote about home. I suspect that the home we want is a refuge, a safe shelter, not only from actual danger or trouble, but from every discomfort. What would make it so? This isn’t what the verse is about – it’s just a rabbit trail.

As I considered and prayed about the idea of refuges, one of the issues is the source of the oppression and trouble. Ultimately, it’s Satan. Penultimately, it’s the world, the flesh, and the devil. At least part of the time, the source is either “People!” or “Life!” or “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”  No matter who the oppressor or troubler is there are two levels involved: physical and nonphysical. The non-physical is the more insidious because it can take place without our even realizing that we’ve been attacked. It’s also far more common than we want to imagine.

And the refuge we need from the non-physical attacks isn’t one with pleasant colors and comfortable chairs. It’s one where the truth is proclaimed and lived. I grew up in a home where the eleventh commandment was “Thou shalt not put holes in walls!” I’m not fond of putting bumper stickers on cars or the equivalent on my walls, but there are other ways of combatting the psychological and spiritual abuse that touches our lives. Reading, studying, and memorizing Scripture are all helpful. That’s where to start, but sometimes, we don’t even realize we’re contributing to our own oppression. We need to be ruthless with ourselves, kicking the lies we tell ourselves out and insisting on the truth proclaimed in Scripture no matter how much we’re tempted to believe the lies. We need to ask ourselves regularly if ours is behavior appropriate to a child of God. If it’s not, we need to run to the refuge – to Scripture, and proclaim its truth over ourselves because that’s what will produce the safe refuge.

It's a challenge to shift our beliefs from what we’ve been taught to what God says. But that’s the most important level of refuge we can have.