1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. 2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” (Psalm 16:1-2)
Where do you take refuge? Those bad days are inevitable. In these moments, we run toward comfort and seek escape. In this world, we have plenty to take refuge in. I remember a few years ago, I had a rough summer. It wasn’t like the sky was falling, but the walls of my life were blanketed by nagging annoyances of day to day living. I was stressed and the details of life seemed more restrictive than freeing. I spent that summer taking refuge in ice cream and Hitchcock movies. However trite this seems, it was a deep comfort for me at the time. It was good.
Perhaps one of the more sad things in life is when we seek good things apart from the refuge of our Lord. He somehow makes the good, good. As crazy as it sounds, that ice cream and cinema summer was holy. And while this isn’t typical church advice – read your Bible, pray – it was a comfort I gained because of the relationship I had with the creator of good. We rob ourselves of joy when we pursue it without a divine connection. When we understand the creator, we gain a deep understanding of His creation. We appreciate it more.
So what we learn in this passage is not merely bumper sticker theology, but a deep education of the Father of lights. We can take refuge in Him because by nature, He is our protector. He fights for us as we surrender our rights to Him. Listen, the battle you are currently fighting – whether small fits of purpose or huge waves of conflict – are covered by our warrior God. The other characteristic we see of our God is that He prefers joy. It is not anti-God to enjoy life. To joke is divine. So everything good, from old black and white movies to the birth of our first child, is a tremor of divine participation in this world. We don’t earn this refuge or good but simply gain it as a result of who our Dad is. Today, enjoy your Father.
Matt simon blog 