Skip to main content

Refuges and ...

 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.”

I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips.

Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16)

 

The past few days have been emotionally difficult. I’m a world-champion fretter. Some friends are making a decision for which I feel responsible. It’s their decision, but if it doesn’t work out well, I’ll kick myself for a long time, so I’m worrying. I want it to work out well for them. My book isn’t progressing as well as I’d like, and my books aren’t selling as well as I’d like. I’m looking for a job, but not very hard. Nothing is quite as I want it to be, and I tend to think in terms of “pass/fail.”

So as I read this psalm, a big part of me wants to do the big baby routine and cry and whimper about needing that refuge the psalmist is talking about. But the truth comes out when I get to the third paragraph. If the Lord alone were my portion and my cup, if He alone made my lot secure, I wouldn’t be whining. I say I believe that He will not abandon me in the realm of the dead, etc., but that doesn’t mean I won’t travel through the valley of the shadow of death, and every time I see a thimble-full of shadow, I’m sure I’m in that valley.

And what all that brings me back to is that God is my refuge, but that the Promised Land within me has not been taken. I’ve let the five nations continue to live – and most of the time, it doesn’t even occur to me that I need to go to war. But while He makes known to me the path of life, and He will fill me with joy in His presence, and with eternal pleasures at His right hand, there are still battles that must be fought.

A poem comes to mind – not as inspired as the psalm above, but which describes the struggle I so often face:

 

My Five Smooth Stones

 My five smooth stones, they missed their mark today.

The giant laughed and went his scornful way.

and I, left dazed and bloody on the field,

can only say that I refused to yield,

for all the good that did, I slowed him not

No vict’ry song, it’s better off forgot

 

Your five smooth stones, they missed their mark today

But mine flew straight, they did not go astray.

Your ego’s wound will let your soul be healed,

and from the worst my mercy did you shield.

The battle won was not the one you thought

But standing there you did not do for nought.

            And so, even when I don't notice, He is still my Refuge and my Protector.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more