‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’ Deep down, we know those words are true. But what about those times when we’re feeling really discouraged and alone? When our prayers haven’t been answered as we’d like, and everything’s going wrong in spectacular fashion. At those times they sometimes feel like nothing more than a nice verse on a pretty mug, and God can seem far away, or not even there. The problem is, when we stop trusting God, we only have our own power to rely on. But it’s not sensible to cut ourselves off from the best source of help and power in the universe.
So, what can we do when we need a bit of extra encouragement, a reminder that we really can have complete confidence in God? Look a little deeper at Psalm 46:1. It promises us that God is ‘present’, with us, alongside us right now. It reveals His power – He’s our ‘refuge’, a safe fortress to protect us. And He’s our ‘strength’, something to cling to when we’re desperate and struggling.
Psalm 19 1-4 says: ‘The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship…night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word…Yet their message has gone throughout the earth’ (NLT). You can’t see God or touch God, but you can see His power and His fingerprints on everything around you. Over the next few days, we’ll be looking in more detail at how we know we can trust Him so much.
What Now?
We’ll be thinking about God’s creation a lot over the next few days. So…go outside and take some time to just enjoy being present in His creation.
