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Dwelling in the Shelter

             Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” (Psalm 91:14-16)

This is another of those passages that used to confuse me a little. I understood the basic concept - God is our source of safety, but I thought of the shelter as a house of some sort. And that is one possibility, but where I live, houses aren’t often thought of as providing shadow. In the Middle East, hot suns are more prolific. The past few days have been hot (for this area) and so this morning as I consider this passage, I have realized that the shelter - whether a house, a pavilion, or a tree is a shelter so that one can be in the shadow, in a refuge and fortress, protected from the merciless sunlight.

As I thought this idea, to break the paradigm, I thought about God as a tree. We take shelter under or behind trees to escape from the heat because trees let us rest in their shadows. Maybe everyone else in the world got this, but for me, it was an “Oh! OK” moment. But along with that moment came the understanding that when we seek the shelter of a tree, we then have to move to keep the tree between ourselves and the sun. There is a part to resting that may require our observation and response. 

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