“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.’” Psalm 91:1-2
I was at a conference last week where one of the speakers spoke (odd, right?) about hiding in God. At first thoughts it sounds like a cheesy Christianise statement, some cliché thought up for the Kindergarten Sunday School class in 1992. But the depth of it is mineable, so mineable in fact that one could mine the aspect of hiding in God for one’s life and never run dry.
At least that’s the thought.
For the flight back I had bought “A Greif Observed” by C.S. Lewis (because the only seventh Harry Potter book the store had was a hardback brick and errbody know my arms are little) wherein he begins to talks about the door being slammed and double bolted in his face when he needs God most.
I’ve felt that, have you? Even though I don’t believe God to ever be silent, I’ve experienced a seeming utter silence. When shouting only compounds the void.
Lewis goes on further in the book to recount the locked door again by saying it was his own cries that drowned out the answer, his own forceful hammerings that caused the small whisper to be lost.
That might be true. But it may be as simple as we don’t want him to answer. Even in our desperate need, with as many pure motives as possible there is still sin. Sin which reviles the shadow of the Almighty because, “I don’t
want to live in anyone’s shadow.” Or, “I don’t
need to hide, I’m a
man.”
Which leads me to the verse I want emblazoned on everything everywhere, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
