Where do you hide?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
(Psalms 32:7 (NIV))

Everyone encounters times in their lives when they need a safe and secure place to take refuge from the onslaught of the world. Sometimes the weight of the world just becomes too much and we need a place to escape to. If I’m not mistaken, each one of us can still remember the last time that you felt this way.

Where did you turn?

Where did you hide?

Hopefully, each of us turns to the same hiding place, the same source of comfort, that David turned to.

Have you ever stopped to think why David was called a man after God’s own heart? Perhaps it had something to do with the simple fact David didn’t only turn to God when he needed a place to hide. He turned to God in all things. David didn’t run from trouble. He had such a good relationship with God that he knew that God would be with him no matter what. Think about that from David’s perspective when he faced Goliath. David wasn’t running from Goliath. He confronted him head on with the security that God would deliver the victory.

Perhaps we should change our definition of the word hide. When we think of hiding, we think of escaping, of cowering in fear, and of avoiding trouble. Maybe we should think of hiding as a place of refuge, preparation and as a source of strength. Thankfully, we have a God who allows both, who provides both. We simply have to turn to Him in all things and not just in times of trouble.

Where do you hide?

Copyright 1998 – 2018 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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Do you have the faith to survive your wilderness?

Be Still . . .
Devotionals for Daily Living ^©

I would flee far away
and stay in the desert;
Selah
I would hurry to my place of shelter,
far from the tempest and storm.
(Psalms 55:7-8 (NIV))

What is your place of shelter?

Do you think of the desert as this place?

Most of us do not think of the desert as a place of refuge, after all, a desert is a harsh place that brings about pain and death.

Perhaps it is our perspective on our situation and our location that gives us this attitude. All throughout the Bible, people who had to experience the desert often came out stronger on the other side. Perhaps this is due to the fact that human nature expects to find God in the lush and plentiful. Let’s face facts. God often appears to us when we do not expect it and in situations that we do not expect. That is exactly why God uses the desert to draw us closer to Him.

The desert lacks the distractions of this world. We can either choose to focus on the fact that we must rely upon God, or we can focus on our situation. If we focus on our situation, if we come out of the desert, we will be weakened and lack focus. Satan will have won.

If we focus on God and what He can provide, then we will come out of the desert stronger in our faith and ready to be the servant that God is calling us to be. In the Bible, “desert” and “wilderness” are often used to indicate a place of testing. A desert is used to indicate a crossing or a right of passage where refuge may be found, while a wilderness indicates an untamed place. Many times throughout each of our lives, we will find ourselves in such a place. How we look upon it will determine our outcome. If we have the faith to look upon our situation as a place of shelter because we have found God to be there, then we will not only survive, God will make us thrive in our work for Him.

Do you have the faith to be in the desert or the wilderness?

Copyright 1998 – 2014 Dennis J. Smock
Daily Living Ministries, Inc.
http://www.dailylivingministries.org
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