Who Is Our Refuge?
Psa 54:1-7 NLT - [1] For the choir director: A psalm of David, regarding the time the Ziphites came and said to Saul, "We know where David is hiding." To be accompanied by stringed instruments. Come with great power, O God, and rescue me! Defend me with your might. [2] Listen to my prayer, O God. Pay attention to my plea. [3] For strangers are attacking me; violent people are trying to kill me. They care nothing for God. Interlude [4] But God is my helper. The Lord keeps me alive! [5] May the evil plans of my enemies be turned against them. Do as you promised and put an end to them. [6] I will sacrifice a voluntary offering to you; I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good. [7] For you have rescued me from my troubles and helped me to triumph over my enemies.
Where do we turn in times of trouble? Whether it be internal conflict, external persecution, or spiritual trials, the Word repetitively and consistently proclaims that God is our refuge. Such simplicity and obviousness resounds in that previous sentence, yet how often we are inclined to disregard it. The natural, corrupted state of man is such that his solution to life's ills resides first within his own logic. Should external aid source from that logic, he may well perhaps yield to it, but not if his own reasoning deems it unnecessary.
But is this a Biblical approach? Certainly not. When Saul sought out to kill David, what is David's response? Thankfully, Psalm 54 captures his very thoughts! He proclaims that "God is [his] helper. The Lord keeps [him] alive!" It is David's bold defiance of man's will that repeatedly brings him salvation. David's strength was not in his sword nor his charisma, but in his heart: a heart that turned all his struggles over to the Lord. How eagerly we need such a spirit! Our first inclination during times of trouble ought to be the immovable truth that "God is [our] helper." Our very spirits must shout for God to "come with great power and rescue [us]!"
O, Lord, how that is the cry of our hearts today! That we may trust not in our own minds, in our own emotions and strength for deliverance. May You and you alone be our refuge! You are our Father, our Deliverer! Great Messiah! Truly the name "Hosanna", meaning "help" or "save, I pray", is the truest name any man could utter in times of trouble! Amen.
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