SOLID FOOTING IN CHANGING TIMES

Psalm 46:1-3

God is our refuge and strength,

an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging.

Selah

                This past weekend was an odd experience for me. It was the first time in my life that I did not attend a corporate worship service on Easter Sunday. There was a definite void; a tangible sense of loss. I think many people are feeling a similar sense of loss, although for different reasons.

                Almost everyone I talk to is talking about the new normal. What will life be like after the Covid-19 pandemic has run its course? Will we go back to the way things were, or will we move in an entirely new direction? Everyone senses that life as we know it is changing, but no one knows what the future will be. We are experiencing a low-level anxiety that is hard to define.

                Next Sunday was supposed to be my last Sunday at Cavalier Baptist Church. We had arranged to pick up a moving truck on Saturday, pack our belongings, and hit the road on Sunday. Now, due to the travel restrictions that have been imposed, that has changed. We have pushed our move back a month, in hopes that by the end of May we may be able to safely make the trip. Yet over the weekend, I found myself struggling with the “what if” question. I actually began to wonder if we would be able to make the transition at all. I know that it was irrational, but it was also real. When everything that you have known as normal is stripped away, it is replaced by uncertainty, anxiety, and fear.

                This morning I opened my devotional guide and turned in my Bible to the Psalm for the week, Psalm 46. The first three verses struck me as a very real message from God. In just a few words, the Psalmist reminded me that I have a solid place to stand, even in these uncertain times. I continue to be amazed how often God directs me to just the right passage of scripture at just the right time. I was not intentionally looking for Psalm 46, but God knew that I needed it.

                God is my refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. My hope, my security, my sense of well-being is not to be found in the circumstances that surround me. My strength is to be found in the Lord. As Paul reminds us in Romans 8, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The idea of a refuge is a place of security that we can go to when life becomes insecure. God is that place of security. As He promised several times in the Bible, I will never leave you or forsake you. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

                One of the things that causes us to be anxious is that many of the things we have either depended upon or have taken for granted have either been suspended or radically changed. For many people it seems like their world is crumbling. The Psalmist reminds us that even if our world crumbles, we don’t have to be afraid, because God is our refuge.

                This season that we are going through is a real test of our faith. Will we trust God in the midst of this? Will we hold onto the truth that God is our refuge?

Psalm 46:10-11

"Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth."

The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Selah