God loves us in good times and in bad....but he is even more real in our lives when we are having tough times.

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“The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9:910)

GIVE CAREFUL THOUGHT by:Anna Popescu

The dictionary defines a stronghold as a fortress. Verse 9 uses the word “refuge” to describe it. I prefer the latter--I like to think of God as being One in Whom I can take shelter and be safe from the storms of everyday life.

I love to go camping, being outdoors enjoying God’s creation. When I lived in the Northeast, I often camped at Lake George in upstate New York , where unexpected weather changes are a normal occurrence. We would drive our boat out to one of the many islands there and set up camp as fast as possible. Once on the island, the first thing we did was string up a large tarp over the picnic table area, where we deposited all the camping gear we unloaded from the boat. Then we set up our tents.

More often than I care to remember, it was raining as we unloaded our gear. Running from the boat to the refuge of our tarp and tent in our ponchos, we generally set up camp in record time. We didn’t want to get soaked!

Then there were the times when the wind would suddenly turn fierce, churning up the waves and blasting us with torrential rain. At these times, we hastened to attach more tarps to the original one, making a kind of tent meant to keep out the rain and allowing us to eat or play games while keeping dry.

Those tarps were our refuge from the unexpected storms of that area. Without them, we would have had to stay in our tents, hoping for the storm to end soon. And without them, our camping gear would have been soaked, most of it ruined.

God wants to be that kind of refuge for us. Everyday we experience the storms of life. Some, like clouds, we expect. Others, such as illness, job loss, or the death of a loved one, surprise us.

Friends, do you know where to find your Refuge? I’m talking about the One Who is always ready to comfort and protect you no matter what you’re going through. In Psalm 32:7, David sings to the Lord: “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” David had the right idea! He knew where to turn when things got bad.

Here on earth we are surrounded by the reality of life. We drag ourselves out of bed in the morning, rush through breakfast, then off to work. Once at work, we experience various kinds of stress and pressure and can’t decide if we like our jobs or not. At the end of the day, we crawl home again through bumper-to-bumper traffic, only to find that we forgot to defrost something for dinner, or that one of the children brought home a couple of D’s on their report card, or perhaps the roof sprang a giant leak over the living room carpet during that day’s rainstorm.

How do we handle these types of situations? Do we weep at the unfairness of it all? Perhaps we plod along reflecting on how our life never seems to get better. Or maybe we choose to ignore it, hoping it goes away.

There is a better way, Beloved! When you feel down and out, look up! God is still in His heaven, no matter what is happening here on earth. He is waiting for you to run to the shelter of His arms. He is our Stronghold, our Refuge in the midst of life’s storms. He wants to help you wade through the shifting waters of your life here on earth.

The Lord is holding our His arms to you right now. All you have to do is close your eyes and you can be in His loving embrace.

Knowing your own strength is a fine thing. Recongnizing your own weakness is even better. What is really bad, what hurts and finally defeats us, is mistaking a weakness for a strenth.

Copyright © 2008 Anna M. Popescu.